


Phoenix

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Adopted Prompts [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Beheading, Brief Dubcon Bathing (Nightsisters Are Not Great with Male Consent), Burning alive, Contains Flashbacks to Obi-Wan's Prior Deaths, Death By Explosion, Gen, Heavy Angst, Horror, No Sex, Norse Blood Eagle, Now Ongoing Without Plan: Ending Could Be Disasterous, Self-Hatred, Slave Child Anakin Witnessed Violence, Some Nudity (Also Nongraphic), Violence Against Phoenix Babies, painful fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-03-08 23:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Obi-Wan is a Phoenix. He looks human, but death is something he gets up and walks away from. He's put a lot of effort into concealing the shameful truth from the beings whose respect he values.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt Moddy released to find a home:
> 
> "What do you think about phoenix Obi? Thats… Obi wan can dies… and a moment later his alive again? In the battel Obi is too reckless. And dead. And his clone is terrified. But his general gets up five minuts later alive and healthy… and… and? And i don’t know whats futher."

 

Waxer's heart was in his throat, the world seemed to spin, and he couldn't move.

His General, reckless as always, had just taken a bolt through the heart, spun around, and collapsed face-first into the mud.

Dead.

Just like that.

He hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, hadn't sensed the danger until too late—

And now Waxer stood frozen on the battlefield, staring at the corpse of the man who defined his world.

“Trooper!” Cody snapped, shaking his shoulder. “ _ Move _ !”

The battle hadn't stopped, just because the 212th's world had shattered. Why should it? No one would care but a Jedi.

And the only Jedi here on this miserable, worthless mudball was dead.

Waxer brought his blaster up and began firing again.

They had to win this battle.

If only so they could carry his body back to mourn over him.

Movement had him turning his head, adrenaline surging in his blood.

General Kenobi's hand clawed at the mud, he lifted his head and dragged in a ragged, wretched breath.

Waxer nearly dropped his weapon as he lunged to his General's side to provide cover.

How in the name of  _ all  _ that was important—

It didn't matter. It  _ didn't matter,  _ because his General was  _ alive _ , and there was hope after all.

 

* * *

 

“I saw you. Sir.” Cody managed to keep his voice from rising, but the experience had been traumatic, and now Kenobi was sitting there, looking a bit worn and headachey, but  _ breathing.  _ And there was a fripping  _ hole through his clothes,  _ and char on the skin beneath. The  _ unbroken  _ skin. “You  _ died. _ ”

Kenobi grimaced, looking sad. “I am sorry. I do try to avoid it.”

_ Avoid dying? _

“The hell is going on, Sir?”

“I'm— I'm a phoenix, Cody.” The man flinched, as if he expected Cody to look at him with revulsion or fear.

Cody simply looked back, not a bit less in the dark than he had been a second before.

Kenobi sighed and looked impossibly cornered. “It's not something I'm proud of. They're mimics. And nest stealers. Two humans on Stewjon wanted a family. They conceived a child. A phoenix heard their happiness, came from the shadows, and while they were asleep and helpless, placed its own embryo inside the womb. That tiny creature, half physical, wholly unnatural, consumed the wanted child, and the parents had no idea until the phoenix was born. They took one look and knew it wasn't theirs. They smashed in the infant's head and left it by the side of the road, hoping a wild animal would eat it.” Kenobi looked down at his hands. “I was lucky. A Jedi passed by, after I had revived and mere hours before I died of exposure. They brought me home, and I was given the name granted to all unknown castaways. Kenobi. It means Light born from cruel fire. The idea that no matter how unwanted you were before, the Order can become your family. Your home. That even in the cruelest of situations, Light can be found, if one just holds on to hope.”

“All due respect, Sir,” Cody replied, feeling cautious. “I've heard of avians with a similar practice. The Stewjonians shouldn't have done that to you. They wanted a baby: they got one.”

“But not theirs. Not even their species. Not  _ a  _ species.”

“Not sure I understand that. You have blood and form like the rest of us.”

Kenobi dragged a palm down his face. “I do. Yes. But it's only half real. Phoenixes... an ancient Sith ritual formed one, Cody, long ago, and no one's been able to find a way to undo that curse. So they've just drifted through the galaxy, propagating like a disease, spreading death and misery wherever they go, and unable to be eradicated.”

Cody felt horror at the words his General was using.

“Do you really see yourself that way, Sir?” he asked, voice not quite steady from anger and shock alike. “A disease that should be eradicated?”  
Kenobi's gaze fell away.

_ Frip, he  _ does. _ He actually does. _

“What about  _ light from fire— _ ?”  
“The Jedi believe in  _ hope _ , and their compassion made them easy prey for a phoenix. Look small and harmless, and the Jedi would defend it to their last breath. That's what phoenixes  _ do.  _ They present themselves as a lie so  _ someone else  _ will protect them and feed them and suffer for them.”

Cody frowned. “To be honest, Sir, knowing you can survive death is a great load off my mind, and I think it would be for General Skywalker as well.”

“No,” Kenobi breathed, looking panicked. “You must not tell him. The phoenix is hated and feared on Tatooine. They burn them alive. Irony, yes, but it is cruel—”

Cody felt a shiver run down his spine at the man's expression. “Sir?” he rasped. “How old were you when someone killed you that way?”  
The General seemed to fold in on himself, as if being smaller could protect him from the memories.

For a long moment Cody thought he wouldn't reply.

“Fifteen,” he whispered at last.

“I'm sorry.”

“Anakin hates phoenixes. And with good reason. I'd rather he didn't know.”  
Cody narrowed his eyes. “You have my obedience as always, General. But I hope you will reconsider.”

“We are in a war.” Kenobi stood, unable to look his Commander in the eye, something supremely miserable about him. “It could be disastrous if he were to turn on me now.”

Cody wondered if he should ask the question eating at him, and finally heard himself speaking, “Sir, why didn't you tell him before the war?”

“Because at first he was a child and would have been terrified his guardian was a monster. And then he was older, and he already hated me, and all I wanted was to win back the trust of the little boy I had raised.” Kenobi stared out the viewport, grief in his eyes. “Some light, eh?”  
And with that, he walked out, leaving Cody to stand there and wish his Jedi didn't hate himself quite so much.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tags have changed with the addition of this chapter. We're going to start having flashbacks to Obi-Wan's past deaths— including those he suffered growing up. I have no intention of pulling punches, so proceed with caution, dears.
> 
> If you want to avoid suffering through those deaths, you can make sure to only read the areas indicated by bold text as current, Clone Wars time. Though I expect that to go dark here eventually. Take care of yourselves, please.

 

**Bandomeer, long ago**

 

“I'll be back,” the boy urged as Qui-Gon sprang forward to try to  _ stop  _ him from—

Obi-Wan succeeded.

The collar detonated.

White light filled Qui-Gon's vision, the force of the blast throwing him back across the floor.

He felt blood on his skin, and it wasn't his. Half of Obi-Wan's skull lay nearby, the largest piece Qui-Gon could see.

The Jedi Master retched, coughing up bile and the last remnants of his meal. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he couldn't be sure if it was from the smoke or the horror.

Dear  _ Force,  _ had a twelve-year-old just—?

A broken wail in Qui-Gon's heart just wouldn't silence.

The cry hadn't belonged to Obi-Wan.

He picked himself up and staggered to the now-open door.

He would be back.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon saved the miners Obi-Wan had been so willing to die to rescue.

To the Jedi Master, it felt like a hollow victory.

Ignoring his scrapes and bruises, he traveled back down to the terrible chamber where he'd been trapped just hours before.

It stank of blood and viscera.

Now that he had an actual lightsource with him, he could see the horrific painting across the walls and ceiling.

He couldn't spare it much attention, though, because there was an Obi-Wan-shaped glow on the floor.

Qui-Gon's pulse pounded in his throat as he crept closer.

It looked like Obi-Wan Kenobi, but with strange wings of flame lying flat against the floor, and as if his body were made of light.

Not all of the details were present, but as Qui-Gon watched, more filled in. The vague shape of his foot regained form.

“What are you?” Qui-Gon whispered, bewildered.  _ Am I going mad? _

Qui-Gon knelt on the blood-stained floor, reaching out a hand to touch the glowing arm.

His fingers passed right through.

_ Are you a spirit? An afterimage? _

Moments later the last details were present, and both glow and wings vanished.

When Qui-Gon tried to touch the slender arm again, he found a strange texture— as if it were half real, half dream—

It solidified beneath his fingers and the boy sat up, eyes flying wide and breath gasping into his lungs.

Qui-Gon dragged him into a hug, crushing him tight to his chest. “How are you alive?”

“I'm sorry,” Obi-Wan rasped, as if returning to life had been the  _ wrong  _ thing to do, as if he'd—

“No.” Qui-Gon couldn't let go of him. “I thought a brave, selfless child had died for me. Dear Force, I was so afraid, so  _ sick— _ ”

Obi-Wan experienced shock at the words, Qui-Gon could sense it.

“I was so very wrong about you,” Qui-Gon whispered. “Will you be my Padawan?”

Obi-Wan squirmed out of his arms so he could stand before him, fingers twisting together in worry. “After you  _ know  _ what I am?”  
“What's that? Terrifyingly dedicated?”

Tears filled blue eyes. “Phoenix.”

The word held no meaning to Qui-Gon. He reached up, brushed his thumb against the child's cheek. “Yes. I want you.”

“But— you despise me. I'm too angry, too likely to go dark—”

“I saw only my own fears, not what you were.” Force, how could he have been so wrong, so blind? “Can you forgive me, precious child? You are Jedi to your core. I can see that now, and I want more than anything to give you a chance to show everyone else what a beautiful person you are.”

Tears slipped down Obi-Wan's pale cheeks. “Yes. I would be honored to be your Padawan, Master.”

Qui-Gon pulled him in close again, holding him as Obi-Wan sniffled into his tunic.

“I was wrong,” he whispered. “You deserve your chance.”

 

* * *

 

**Clone Wars**

 

 

“Sir?”

Obi-Wan peered up, trying to see through the fog that had possession of his brain. “Yes?”  
“Why are you shaking? You've been trembling the last two days.” Waxer looked very concerned. He frowned. “Does it have to do with dying day before yesterday?”  
Obi-Wan's gaze swung around, searching to make sure Anakin or any of the 501 st were out of earshot. He sagged against the tactical table, squeezing his eyes shut. “Yes.” He'd made one fatal error with Cody.

He'd managed to order him not to tell Anakin.

He'd neglected to say anything about Cody's brothers.

The entire fripping 212 th knew he was Phoenix, and that he'd died.

It was only a matter of time before...

His airway tightened.

“Sir, please let a medic have a look at you.”  
Obi-Wan shook his head. “It's not that. It's the supernatural side of me that's malfunctioning. I wasn't held after returning this time.”

Qui-Gon had always held him close after his deaths, staving off the uncontrollable trembling.

And once Qui-Gon died...

Well, Mace Windu had held him after his second most recent death.

For some reason, his half-physical, half-illusion body required reassurance he was wanted, or things began to malfunction.

Obi-Wan had been too alarmed that his men had found out to remember it at first, but it was crippling now.

He wouldn't be able to fight like this.

“Understood, sir.” Waxer walked away.

It took several moments before Obi-Wan managed to wrangle his brain enough to realize there was no way in heck what he'd said made sense without  _ explanation,  _ but Waxer was gone, so he couldn't really offer one.

Thin arms slipped around him from behind, and a cheek pressed against the middle of his back.

“Waxer said you looked like you needed a hug,” Ahsoka murmured, squeezing Obi-Wan tight.

Tears started to Obi-Wan's eyes and he pressed his wrist to his lips to keep from whimpering. “Yes,” he managed in a strangled whisper. “Yes, I do.”  
Ahsoka turned him around and snuggled against his chest, arms locked tight around him.

Hesitant, careful, Obi-Wan wrapped his own arms around her in return.

For several long minutes they simply stood there, holding one another.

And as they did, Obi-Wan's shivering slowed... eased...

Faded away entirely.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter begins with the time long ago that Obi-Wan burned to death. Then in the middle we get some Evil!Baby horror, though you the audience know it's not actually evil, and to round it all out, we get a Norse Blood Eagle at the end. With a side of beheading. Dinner is served?
> 
> I'm telling you this now in case you didn't re-read the tags to see the updates for this chapter.
> 
> Oddly enough (considering a blood eagle involves rib cutting and lung-torture), I would say the beheading is the most graphic, and for that I upped the rating to explicit. My goal was for the reader to experience pain, not disgust, but I may have forgotten when writing that scene that most people did not grow up on a farm that harvested turkeys each year.
> 
> So. Sorry about that. There are ick factors.
> 
> It's not going to be a very nice chapter, precious. Gollum, gollum.
> 
> If you think that reading this chapter will not be good for your health, do not fear: Chapter 4 is written, and though painful, it is not gross. So hang in there, self-regulate, know more phoenix Obi-Wan is on the way and technically you don't have to read this chapter to understand the aftermath of it. 
> 
> As a favor to me, please only read this chapter if you think it will make your day better. <3

 

 

**Twenty-two years ago**

 

“ _Please_!” Qui-Gon shrieked.

Obi-Wan looked to him with horrified eyes, and Qui-Gon couldn't tell if he was more terrified of dying in such a brutal way, or of Qui-Gon having to bear witness to it.

Because of course his beautiful Light would be thinking of _Qui-Gon's_ trauma in all this.

“It'll be alright,” Obi-Wan choked out, voice unsteady.

Trying to comfort _Qui-Gon._

Qui-Gon tried again to free himself from the cage, found it beyond his skill once more.

Obi-Wan held his silence as wood was stacked around his feet, as the torch was set to it.

He stared at the flame until it was close to his bound ankles, and then he looked away, up to Qui-Gon's face.

Qui-Gon froze, heart thundering, _breaking—_

Obi-Wan flinched as his leggings caught, damp from the accelernt he'd been doused with. He trembled, eyes wide, staring Qui-Gon in the eye as pain rushed in to join the teenager's fear.

_This is happening._

There wasn't anything Qui-Gon could do to stop it.

He clung to the bars of his cage and reached out through his bond to Obi-Wan.

Their access to the Force had been dampened, but it couldn't completely seal their connection to one another.

_I am with you,_ he sent to his precious Padawan. _I will not leave you. I will be here when you wake again._

The crowd jeered, delighted with Obi-Wan's suffering and fear, something sick and broken about them.

His gaze flickered to them, eyebrows drawing in— a sure tell that Obi-Wan felt their hate and glee, how they _despised_ him, heard their cruel words.

_Don't listen to them, Padawan. Focus on me. Only me._

Obi-Wan obediently dragged his gaze back to Qui-Gon's face, a whimper escaping him as he shuddered against the stake.

He didn't scream.

Qui-Gon kept expecting it, kept waiting, but Obi-Wan suffered in a silence as heartbreaking as any of the rest of it.

As if he didn't feel he had a right to make his ending loud.

Not that he wanted someone to relieve his pain, but as if he he wanted all attention to leave him entirely. To become small, to agonize and die alone.

Qui-Gon kept a Force-pressure against his mind, even when the feedback became so terrible that it dragged the older Jedi to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks as he groaned.

He was close.

Obi-Wan's head lolled back, his eyes went glassy—

The teen convulsed, and then wings of flame exploded from his back, the unnatural wreathing of flame from within his _own_ body white and a blue to match his eyes, entirely different from the orange and yellow of the sentient-made torment.

Flame revealing just _what_ Obi-Wan was, stripping away the disguise in a way no other death could.

Terrified gasps spilled across the crowd and the mob fell back, only to slowly regain its courage and begin cheering again when Obi-Wan did not break free to slaughter them all.

Qui-Gon knew it wasn't the phoenix receiving a second wind, a burst of strength to survive.

It was a dying thrash.

The wings, the flame had been there all along.

Just... impossible to see.

Obi-Wan succumbed to the heat and smoke before the fire had a chance to burn his face.

The rest of the ordeal he didn't feel.

It dragged on until Qui-Gon felt the silent punch in his heart that he recognized, and the blue and white flame vanished, leaving only splitting and charring skin to burn.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon's cage was unlocked, and the demand was made that they _leave_ before Obi-Wan revived.

The demand would receive no argument.

The corpse was unrecognizable, and far too hot to carry safely.

Qui-Gon gladly suffered the burns in his arms and against his chest as he raced for the ship.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry—_

The planetary information in the Republic's databases had said _nothing_ about such a deep-rooted hatred and fear of phoenixes.

Qui-Gon would make sure an entry was _made._

For most people, it would have been a slight omission in the local myths. An understandable oversight when anthropologists cataloged the cultures of countless worlds in a lifetime.

To someone who knew the phoenix was _far more_ than legend, it could mean terrible things.

Qui-Gon set the body down on the bunk, horrified that Obi-Wan hadn't begun healing yet.

Hatred-kindled fire was an assault that a phoenix had little defense against. It cut right to the quick.

Qui-Gon stumbled to the cockpit, flipping switches and sending the ship into the atmosphere.

He didn't know how long it would take Obi-Wan to return, but he wanted to be by his side every step of the damned way.

 

* * *

 

It took Obi-Wan weeks to recover.

He regained life within hours, and had to lie still as his body knit itself back together.

To call it painful would have been a cruel understatement.

Obi-Wan clung to his master's presence, needing reassurance, needing to _feel_ that not everyone believed him to be a vile blight on the universe, made only to inflict suffering and so deserving of whatever creative punishments the mortals could invent to bestow.

With time the outer wounds disappeared, leaving Obi-Wan apparently untouched.

The internal wounds were something not even the best Mind Healer was able to help him entirely heal from.

 

* * *

 

**14 Years Ago and Many Systems Away**

 

A baby was a precious thing.

And to the small community of free but dirt-poor Mos Espans, often their only solace in this wretched environment was their family.

These— in addition to the other slaves— were the only people kind to Anakin and his mother.

A baby was difficult to carry in the desert, and dangerous to birth. When a pregnancy was discovered, the choice to try to keep the child was never a quick decision, or an easy one.

Choosing to try could mean death.

To coax a spark into life, to carry it through nine months of the hard toil that survival required of every common being, and survive the birth with the terrible medical assistance available—? It was a sacrifice.

Anakin knew because he'd seen it.

The midwife had discovered that Anakin had a strange way of calming— and even easing some of the pain of— the birthing mothers, and once that accidental discovery had been made, she often called Anakin to hold the hand of a woman trying to give birth.

The child would squeeze the hand tight and gently stroke the hair back from the villager's face, helping in a way none of them could really understand, but they all could measure.

That's why he was there when a monster was born instead of a baby.

It was the stuff of nightmares, and it would haunt his dreams forever.

It looked like a baby, almost— gross and waiting to get cleaned up. But the instant the midwife went to wrap it in a blanket, fire blazed in its eyes, and unnatural flame seemed to wreath it.

Someone screamed.

Because of his height, Anakin couldn't see for a few seconds, and then the next glimpse he caught was of the not-baby in the fireplace, thrashing with a strength no infant should possess, and surrounded by the strangest, most terrifying fire Anakin had ever seen. Fire didn't look like _that._

The wails escaping the thing were blood-curdling, as if it would crawl into Anakin's own ears and hollow _him_ out too.

Anakin could sense the terror and horror of the people present, the anguished _grief_ of the woman who still gripped his hand, the woman who had chosen to risk _everything_ to have a baby, and who had instead been infected with a parasite that had nearly claimed her life.

Anakin had nightmares that night, and Shmi refused to send him with the midwife anymore.

He tried to never think of it again, but there was once, just before he turned nine, where he saw a young man chased out of town, stoned until he fell nerveless to the ground, and then doused with oil and set on fire.

Anakin had been bewildered and angry until he saw the demon wings again and knew.

This was one of _those_ things. Something that had stolen from an innocent family who just wanted a baby.

It was like a Tusken Raider, who stole and stole and didn't care about anybody but themselves.

A phoenix wasn't a person.

It was the terror of the night made manifest.

 

* * *

 

**Present: Clone Wars**

 

“Anakin. I need to tell you something about me.”

Obi-Wan had seen this, countless times in the past.

Secrets _always_ came to light if multiple people knew them.

An entire battalion knew. It was only a matter of time before one let slip something to one of the 501 st .

Clones weren't used to keeping secrets from brothers of a similar rank.

Better to tell his former Padawan himself, have some form of control over the presentation, than to have it just blow up in their faces with Anakin's first accusation being _had to find out through the joganvine._

Just... be brave... walk up to the cannon's mouth... take whatever came...

Anakin chuckled. “You look terrified. It's not like you're gonna tell me you're actually a Sith. You could never be a monster. So relax a little, tell me what's on your mind.”

_What's worse? A Sith who murders children by choice or a phoenix who unknowingly murders babies by design?_

Oh, Force, he couldn't.

“I'm not feeling so well,” Obi-Wan stammered out.

Anakin frowned. “You must be really feeling ill to mention it. Okay. I'll finish this offensive, Obi-Wan. You go take a nap.”

Obi-Wan didn't fight the command, since he had to get out of there.

He retreated to his bunk and sat on it, staring at his hands in silence.

_I'm a coward, Qui-Gon. I'm so sorry._

_So sorry._

 

* * *

 

Anakin and Obi-Wan stumbled down a dim hallway, the Mandos growling at them in clear impatience.

They paused before a cell, shoving Anakin's exhausted and injured frame into it and slamming the locks closed.

“Can't leave 'em together,” one muttered. “They'd figure out some damn way to escape. Alright.”

A silver vibrosword swung, Obi-Wan's eyes widened, realizing just a moment too late—

Anakin heard his own scream as his best friend's head hit the floor, the body toppling over and spilling blood as it thrashed. Strange noises gurgled through the severed neck, a wheeze of air escaping, an odd squeak Anakin had no idea the cause.

The Mandos chuckled and walked out, leaving Anakin alone, filthy bars between him and his broken heart.

Anakin crawled into a corner, burying his face in his knees, and shuddered.

 

* * *  


**Three Hours Later**

 

A slight sigh yanked Anakin's head up.

His heart lunged up into his throat as he saw Obi-Wan— head attached to his body— trying to open exhausted eyes.

“Master,” Obi-Wan whispered, disoriented.

“Oh Force, oh, _Force,_ ” Anakin choked, scooting forward and reaching out a trembling hand. “Oh gods—”

Obi-Wan blinked, focused on Anakin, pulled himself to his knees. A crimson line surrounded his throat, a wound not healed, but he was _alive,_ so it couldn't be too deep—

_His head rolled across the floor,_ Anakin's memory tried to insist, but _clearly_ he'd miss-seen, and _Force,_ was he going to _complain_?

Obi-Wan crawled toward the cage. “We need to get out of here,” he rasped—

“Look who's awake,” crowed a voice, and armored beings filtered back into the torture room.

Obi-Wan tried to stand to face them, but a fist caught him in the lower back, knocking wind out of his lungs in a pained huff. He curled on the floor, trying to escape the agony of the kidney strike, when hands swooped down and dragged him several feet away from the cage.

They pinned him down and the glint of a knife appeared—

And then bodies were in the way and Anakin couldn't see—

“Don't _touch him!_ ” Anakin shrieked, throwing himself against the bars and trying to demand the Force obey his call, but the drugs in his system made it too difficult to _reach—_

The rasp and snap of ribs being severed—

An odd noise escaped Obi-Wan, a wet whine, a cough twisted out of him—

“That'll keep him for a while. Okay. See you in a bit.” Again they tromped out, leaving silence across the room.

Anakin almost didn't dare look—

He finally did—

Obi-Wan lay on his stomach, head turned away from Anakin.

Movement above his back caught Anakin's gaze and left him swallowing back again and again as his stomach heaved bile.

It was his master's _lungs._

His ribs had been cut from his spine, arcing open just a bit, leaving his chest cavity open and unpressurized.

That alone would kill him, leave him unable to breathe—

But his lungs had been pulled up through his back, draped over the hideous tableau.

A Mandalorian Eagle.

A tremble ran through Obi-Wan's body, the lungs fluttered again, trying to work—

And Anakin could do nothing to help him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teen-rated recap for all you lovely darlings who looked at my warnings for last chapter, decided your day would not be bettered by enduring it, and skipped to here. I am very proud of you for putting your mind's health first. 
> 
> And for you bloodthirsty little bunnies who read through the whole sordid mess and loved every shuddering second of it, you won't really mind the recap, now will you.
> 
> Basics: We saw why Obi-Wan fears being revealed. Burning to death is awful, and poor, poor Qui-Gon, who had to watch. Side note: This story's Qui-Gon is a loving human being, and it really ripped him up inside.
> 
> We also saw why Anakin hates phoenixes. He was a little kid who witnessed the birth of one, and it— and the villagers' reactions to it— were quite frankly horrific. Force. It's a wonder he ever sleeps at all at night. This was Fair Warning channeling the energy of baby-horror films. Which she does not watch many of, because she finds them... alarming.
> 
> And finally: the Team are captured by Mandos. So that Anakin can discover Obi-Wan's heritage by Obi-Wan being tortured to death multiple times in a row. (Yes— thank you commenter who suggested it.) Anakin may have witnessed two deaths. One he's dismissed as his having miss-seen it, the second is currently in effect.
> 
> This chapter will include Obi-Wan's alarming (and early formed) hatred of self, some temporary spinal injury paralysis, a wee little neck snapping (also temporary), and BAMF Ahsoka.

 

 

**In the Past**

 

Eleven-year-old Obi-Wan settled in front of the console, his pen ready to take notes.

He was  _ ready  _ for this class assignment. He needed to give a report about his species, and the directions hadn't specified  _ against  _ using the holonet.

It would be  _ so much faster  _ than looking it up in the stuffy old volumes here in the library. He might even have his report in  _ early,  _ which would look good for a potential master.

His heart fluttered in his throat as he caught sight of the titles of his first search.

_ Wh-what? _

He glanced around the room to make sure no one was close enough to read his expression, and then his gaze was sucked in again.

He began to tremble.

And then he began to sniffle.

He wiped away the tears and snot and kept searching.

But two hours later...

The general consensus seemed final.

_ I am an abomination. _

 

* * *

 

The public didn't know where the phoenix originated from.

That required extra digging.

Obi-Wan managed to sneak his way into the correct section, and buried himself in pages of ancient books to try to discover the secret.

He did.

On the bright side, he had everything he needed for his oral report.

 

* * *

 

“...stealing life and joy and leaving only itself behind.”

The entire classroom sat in appalled silence.

The teacher gaped at Obi-Wan, searching his face and Force signature to discover if this was some sort of joke, or if he was really as  _ comfortable  _ with his words as he'd sounded—

Concern flooded the woman's face as she finally spoke. “Initiate Kenobi, while you have described the actions and influences of certain individuals of your species, you haven't actually told us about your species.”

“I just did.”

“Did you learn anything about what art has been contributed by your people, or your customs, or beliefs—?”

Obi-Wan frowned. “We're disgusting. Why would it matter?”

“I can see that you put a lot of thought and effort into your report. Thank you for working so hard, Obi-Wan. You can go back to your seat now.”

Obi-Wan did, feeling the shocked gazes of his classmates.

“Initiate Vos—?”

Quinlan stood up and shuffled to the front of the class, but never once bothered to look at his single page of scrawled notes. “I am a Vos from Clan Vos. We're Kiffars. Kiffars are not related to humans in any way though often times people think so because we look similar. Some Kiffars have psychometry. I got it. We got a planet, and a prison planet, and the prison planet sucks. Can I sit down now?”  
The class forgot about Obi-Wan in the exasperation sweeping through the room.

Obi-Wan sagged deeper into his chair.

When Quinlan returned to his seat next to Obi-Wan's, he leaned over and whispered, “Yours was cooler than mine.”

Obi-Wan sent him a horrified, disgusted grimace.

“I am Bant Eerin and I am a Mon Calamari. Mon Calamari can trace their ancestry all the way back to...”

Obi-Wan could feel his friend's worried eyes locked on his face, even as she offered up points of interest and facts.

Worry wasn't anywhere near enough.

The teacher had Obi-Wan and Quinlan stay after everyone else filed out.

Quinlan was told to redo his assignment—  _ written,  _ this time, and requiring certain points of information to pass.

“I want to know what your most famous artist's name was and what they were remembered for doing. I want to know what kind of political structure your planet has. I want to know what your native language is, and I want you to teach the class how to say hello in that language. You will chose five points of interest beyond that, you can pick which ones, but you cannot just gloss over. You  _ know  _ how to do this, Quin. I need you to just cooperate.”

Quinlan sent Obi-Wan a careless grin, accepted the paper with instructions, and strolled out of the room.

Quinlan. Who  _ already  _ had a master waiting for him to get old enough.

Quinlan. Who would never have to wonder if he would be chosen or not.

The teacher sat on the edge of the small stage where her desk sat, patting the step beside her. Obi-Wan sat, wondering what she was going to do.

“Where did you find the the facts you used for your report?” she asked, her voice gentle.

Obi-Wan stared at his folded hands in his lap. “I used the holonet. And for the origins information I used old books in the library.”

“Can you tell me what the difference is between those two sources?”  
“The one was made by scientists of the time, and the other by just anybody?”

“I am very impressed that you worked so hard. You put a lot of time into this, didn't you.”

Obi-Wan nodded as he bowed his head.

A warm, comforting hand settled on his shoulder. “Can you tell me what was different about your report from Bant's?”  
“My people are disgusting and hers are normal.”

“I want to know the difference between your  _ reports.  _ Not the differences between your species.”

“I...” Obi-Wan wracked his brain, but couldn't find the answer she wanted. “I don't know.”

“Bant gave us facts about what her people have accomplished. You told us how some individuals see your people.”

“We  _ haven't  _ accomplished anything,” Obi-Wan whispered.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently. “While we might not be able to find much, I don't believe that's true. And even if it was, there is always room for you to do something wonderful and be the record that is written for the future.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. “You're not going to mark my report as finished, are you.”

“We're going to work on it together, Obi-Wan. Okay? We can start with something along the lines of:  _ While most of the galaxy believes them to be a myth, the Phoenix people group really does exist.  _ We can include interesting facts about your biology, and describe your unique origins.”

“ _ Unique _ ?” Obi-Wan pulled away from her and stood up. “We were  _ invented  _ by a crazy Sith scientist!”

“Obi-Wan, where a person comes from matters. But what matters more is where they're going. Your baby self couldn't pick what species to be, where to be born, any of that. But young man you,  _ you  _ can decide where to  _ go.  _ You still want to be a knight, don't you?”  
“Yes,” he whispered, feeling so  _ far  _ from that goal.

“Then you will be the first Phoenix to be a knight of the Jedi Order. Every time you help someone and bring a smile to their heart, you will be proving that a Phoenix is just like any other being in this universe: You can choose to be kind, or you can choose to be unkind— the  _ exact same choice  _ any Twi'lek, Kiffar, or Mon Cal faces every day of their lives.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “But evil magick, with the intent to  _ harm— _ ”

“May have been what was intended originally, but you are a sentient being, Obi-Wan. And that means you have the power of choice. It's an amazing and beautiful power. You can be  _ whatever kind of person  _ you want yourself to be.”

Obi-Wan's shoulders sagged.  _ I just want to be human. _

But  _ that  _ desire was out of reach.

 

* * *

 

**Present: Clone Wars**

 

 

Anakin found it difficult to resent Obi-Wan's death.

He'd suffered so horribly before the end.

It made him almost wish the beheading had been real. Horrible as it had seemed to Anakin, it would have inflicted only a moment's agony, instead of nearly two minutes of broken whispers of breath he'd had to endure instead.

The tensed, shuddering body had fallen still at last, and Anakin himself sunk into a form of stupor.

He couldn't confirm Obi-Wan's death, but it had been several hours.

A human body needed pressure within the chest cavity for the lungs to  _ work.  _ A diaphragm, ribs, a vacuum within— you couldn't just open it up with impunity.

Obi-Wan was gone.

Anakin stared at the floor between his own feet.

By the time Ahsoka and Rex managed to rescue him...

Anakin Skywalker would be irrevocably altered.

“Please, Master,” whispered a voice. “Not again.”

Anakin dragged his head up, his heart not jolting.  _ I'm going mad. _ There was no need to get excited about such an atrocity.

Obi-Wan had curled up in the fetal position, his robes torn, but his back whole.

Blood stained the floor in the spattered patterns left from brutal death—

_ Both of them,  _ Anakin realized.

Obi-Wan shuddered. “Master Jinn,  _ please. _ ” Then a bone-deep sigh escaped him, and he pulled himself to his knees.

Anakin had no time to recover from the jolt of realizing this was  _ happening  _ when the tromp of boots hit his ears again.

“Run,” Anakin choked. “ _ Run! _ ”

Obi-Wan tried to stand, but his knees dropped him back down.

“Alright. We're almost done,” one of their captors announced. “Probably don't need so long.” The sword lashed out, slit Obi-Wan's back.

Anakin watched as Obi-Wan's eyes widened in pain, as he fell over at hit the floor.

“That'll do.” They drove Anakin away from the door with electropikes, and then slung Obi-Wan into the cage and relocked the door.

Obi-Wan lay where he fell, his legs oddly tangled and limp.

And then they were left alone again.

Anakin couldn't move for a long moment, and then he crept towards the man who lay so very still, eyeing the slight ooze of blood from the middle of his spine.

“I'm sorry,” Obi-Wan murmured.

_ I died somewhere at the beginning of this, and I'm in a bizarre hell.  _ “What for?”

“I should have realized it wasn't Death Watch.”

“They're Mandalorians,” Anakin countered.

Obi-Wan wheezed an almost-laugh. “Not the same,” he coughed out. “Not the same.”

Anakin knelt beside him, reaching out to turn him so his face wasn't pressed into the filth of the floor. He wouldn't have risked it for most spinal injuries, but this one...

He could see it had been severed clean through.

“We'll get you back to the Halls of Healing, they'll put a couple of connectors in, we'll have you walking in no time,” Anakin murmured, his voice shaking and his eyes filling with tears.

Obi-Wan sighed again, looking so  _ tired _ . “I don't want to live like this. Anakin: please just kill me. It'll reset, I won't be paralyzed when I return. We'll have a better chance to escape.”

“I—” Anakin's throat constricted.

It was all there, all  _ there _ , but it couldn't  _ be. _

Better for Anakin's own sanity to be questioned than for  _ this  _ to be.

His voice sounded chastising as he managed, “ _ Master. _ ”

“I know it's frightening, and I'm sorry to ask it of you, but please, snap my neck. It's a quick return— I'll be back within a few minutes.”

Anakin's hands shook, he could barely see through the horror and shock, but Obi-Wan's eyes looked so grieved and in so much  _ pain— _

_He is a phoenix._

Anakin stopped trying to deny it.

He  _ had  _ seen his head fall severed to the floor.

He'd seen him die twice so far.

He reached out, drawing Obi-Wan up, settling his arm over Obi-Wan's throat in the right way—

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan whispered, such gratitude in his eyes. “I'll be right back.”

Anakin yanked to the side, feeling and hearing the crunch-snap, and the soft breath that escaped Obi-Wan.

Anakin clung to the corpse, fingers touching the throat that no longer bore a hint of the earlier slaughter. A back clear of the mutilation.

Silent, the bones of Obi-Wan's neck came back together.

The cut through his back closed up.

Anakin was braced for it when his master drew in a breath and opened his eyes.

_ My father is a phoenix. _

Blaster fire brought his head up, had Obi-Wan squirming out of his arms and striding to the door, inspecting the locks and trying to find a way out.

Anakin could only watch him in a swirling fog of dread.

Obi-Wan.

_ Obi-Wan. _

“Are we too late?” Ahsoka's voice asked, half joke, mostly strained with fear the joke might not be funny, might be  _ true  _ instead—

_ Yes,  _ Anakin thought.

“Not at all,” Obi-Wan soothed, as if he hadn't been brutally murdered. Thrice. “Can you cut the door open, please?”

When Anakin stood, he stumbled, and Obi-Wan steadied him.

Anakin pulled away from him, shell shocked and unable to endure his touch at the moment.

It was too much.

All of it was just... too much.

* * *

 

“What's gotten into him?” Ahsoka asked, sounding shocked and disgusted.

Obi-Wan watched his former padawan disappear deeper into the camp. Anakin had snapped an affirmative at Ahsoka when she asked for the fourth time if he was sure he was alright.

Ahsoka scowled at where Anakin  _ had  _ been, and then looked up at Obi-Wan. “I mean, neither of you were tortured, right?”  
“Neither of us are harmed right now, Ahsoka,” he murmured. “It's... it's news that has him so unsettled. And... it's time you knew too.”

Hearing the grief and pain in his voice, Ahsoka's glare melted away. She didn't ask him what it was, she simply stood and waited, watching his face with such care and love that it made Obi-Wan's heart feel on the edge of shattering.

_ Last time she looks at me that way. _

He memorized it, hoping he would never forget.

“I'm a phoenix, Ahsoka.”

Instead of shock or denial, her shoulders sagged in relief. “Oh thank the  _ Force, _ ” she wheezed. “You don't know what a load that is off my mind. I mean, of  _ course  _ I'll still do my best to keep you from dying, it must be awful when you do, and I don't ever want you to have to die again, but the fact you can come back from it?” Ahsoka toppled forward, wrapping her arms tight around him, her feet barely touching the ground.

Obi-Wan shifted, startled, arms coming up to hold her so she wouldn't fall.

“You're... not repulsed?” Obi-Wan whispered.

Ahsoka hugged him tighter, making his ribs creak. He shivered just a bit, remembering the pain from earlier. “Why? You're not repulsed I'm Togruta? Or that the boys are clones? Why would I have a problem with your species?”

And Obi-Wan  _ needed  _ her acceptance, her love, and so he hugged her back, torn between wanting to cry over the beauty of how the Temple taught her children or curse over the feeling that some things should be  _ warned  _ about. He was a monster, no matter what the Jedi said—

“So why is Anakin mad?”

Oh,  _ kark. _ Tell the truth and rob this child of her unmarred hero worship of her master, damage that sacred bond, or get a little creative with the truth?

“You would have to ask him. He's probably frustrated with not getting us out of there before the cavalry came in.”

Ahsoka snorted. “Proud fripper.”

“ _ Ahsoka _ !”

 

* * *

 

**Three Days Later**

 

Skyguy wasn't talking to Master Obi-Wan.

And when Master Obi-Wan thought no one was looking, and he caught sight of Anakin...

He would get this  _ look  _ in his eyes, of shame and grief and loneliness.

Something had to be done.

Ahsoka cornered her Master in the deserted mess hall, and crossed her arms, squaring her shoulders and arching a browmarking at him. “What's going on with you and Master Obi-Wan?”  
“Nothing,” he mumbled.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Right. The battalions are hushed, everyone is just holding their breath, and Master Obi-Wan looks like he's—”  _ Like his heart is breaking slowly. _

“Like he's been  _ caught _ ?” Anakin muttered. “I should think so. Out of my way, Ahsoka. I have to go make my report—”

“No!”

Both of them stared at each other with wide, shocked eyes.

“I mean, no, Master,” Ahsoka fumbled. “You're hurting him.”

A scowling sneer stole Anakin's face. “ _ I'm  _ hurting  _ him _ ? Do you even know what he  _ is _ ?”

“He's... a Jedi? A Council member? What are you so angry with him for?” she whispered.

Anakin turned away from her. “Not what he  _ does.  _ What he  _ is. _ ”

Ahsoka watched him leave, feeling bewildered. _ What is going on? _

She would need to speak to Obi-Wan again.

And this time, she wouldn't let him evade.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No death in this chapter. Angst, sure. Plenty.

 

**Present**

 

“No more creative truths. He's my Master,” Ahsoka pleaded.

Obi-Wan couldn't look into those worried eyes and say no. He dropped his gaze to his hands, lying limp in his lap. “Anakin came to the Temple when he was nine years old.”

“So?”

“So not everywhere are children taught to look at other species the way you were.”

Ahsoka frowned. “If Anakin had trouble with people who weren't human, he wouldn't have agreed to let me stay with him.”

“Tatooine has many superstitions. I'm not just another species to him, Ahsoka. I am to you, to the other Jedi, to my Master. But Anakin sees me as something other. An evil spirit, of sorts. A trickster.”

“How did he _not_ know before?” she demanded. “You _raised_ him!”

“I kept it from him.”

Ahsoka planted her hands on her hips. “You mean you could have taught him to accept people not like him, but you avoided it instead?”

“Yes.” His reply left her reeling in shock even as it dragged tears to his own eyes. “I was afraid. And the more time passed, the harder it became to think of admitting I was what he hated and feared so much.”

Ahsoka rubbed her forehead, a quiet sigh escaping her. “Okay.”

Obi-Wan simply watched her with sad eyes.

“No, I get it,” she agreed. “I still think you messed up, but I understand how it happened. And... I can't say for sure I would have been brave enough to do any differently, if I'm fully honest with myself.”

Obi-Wan doubted that. He saw a burning strength within Ahsoka that he dearly valued.

Ahsoka reached out and took his hand, squeezing it between both of her own. “It's going to be okay,” she murmured. “Your bond is strong, it will survive this. He just needs a little time.”

_It's hate and fear, Ahsoka. He's never overcome those feelings at any point in his life. For anything._

_I don't think he's going to start for me._

He definitely didn't love Obi-Wan enough for that.

 

* * *

 

**Past**

 

“Obi-Wan! I found a trilogy of books that has a family of phoenixes! As _heroes_!”

Sixteen-year-old Obi-Wan looked up from the table, watching his master with puzzled eyes.

 _Had he been looking for such a thing?_ Obi-Wan wondered. From the excitement in Qui-Gon's voice, the Padawan suspected he had. _It's very kind of him, but I don't see why it's important._

Triumphantly Qui-Gon set down a datapad with an article open on it. “We'll see if any of the libraries near here have them. There's even a holofilm being made of the first one—”

Obi-Wan saw the title.

A noise may have escaped Obi-Wan. Disbelief, humiliation, embarrassment on Qui-Gon's behalf, disgust— so many _things_ swirled inside Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon could feel them.

“What's wrong?”

No, _no—_ “It's fine,” Obi-Wan soothed. _Don't make him feel worse._

Qui-Gon hadn't come to realize Obi-Wan's... disgustingness yet. He was still in denial, and while it was naive, Obi-Wan didn't want to hurt him, force him into the realization that would one day hit.

“ _Dusk_ is very popular, Master.”  
“I don't see the proble—”

“Among preteen girls.”

Qui-Gon still didn't see the problem. “They have good taste.”

“Master, anyone over the age of twelve who reads those books _hides it._ And if you're a boy, you hide it _before_ that.”

Qui-Gon sat down opposite him at the table. “It's young adult fiction, though? What's in them that is so embarrassing? Is there sex?”

An eep escaped Obi-Wan.

“Master, there's a lot of that in young adult fiction. And I don't think there's much of it in there, or the books might be better liked, actually. It's... it's that people don't _want_ there to be goodguy phoenixes. They think that if a phoenix chooses only to give babies to people who can't have them but want them... it's silly. Besides. All of the phoenixes in the story have a stupid tattoo on their faces that can be seen by the moonlight, so they can't go outside at night, or people would know what they were. And supposedly the romance is dumb too, or something. I don't know.”

Qui-Gon chuckled. “Aren't most romances in young adult stories 'dumb,' or has the world changed that much since my teenagerhood?”

Obi-Wan found himself smiling a bit at that too. “No, you're right. I prefer novels meant for adults.”

“Oh, I'm aware,” Qui-Gon groaned. “Those heavy tomes from a few thousand years ago, historical fiction even _then._ H. A. Genty, isn't it? Who wrote novels about the wars of the long ago past and the tactics of them?”

“They're _interesting,_ ” Obi-Wan retorted.

Qui-Gon rolled his eyes. “ _They're difficult._ ”

“They have a _cadence._ You just have to absorb the feel, and let the rhythm of it speak.”

“Uh-huh. Right. Okay, my grown-up Padawan, carry on.” Qui-Gon swooped up the datapad and marched on out of the kitchen.

Obi-Wan felt a pang of guilt. “Master... I'm sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Obi-Wan. You've endured stigma from your peers for what you choose to read since the get-go. I can understand wanting to avoid it when you can.”

Relief spilled through Obi-Wan.

It proved short-lived.

 

* * *

 

**Four Days Later**

 

Obi-Wan found a datapad on the couch. He spoke up to tell Qui-Gon he'd forgotten it, when his gaze fell on the words.

_Holonet Safe Space for Adult Dusk Fans of All Genders._

“Oh no,” Obi-Wan whispered, sinking into the chair.

There was one area dedicated to arguments defending the trilogy, highlighting why it was necessary in the progress of fantasy literature. That no, it might not be a masterpiece, but it opened the door for new authors to explore a world they'd never had opened to them in this way before.

Another argument said that the genre of fantasy romance was only absurd until it makes a spectacular number of credits.

Another pointed out that there was _nothing_ for a phoenix to read about phoenixes except stories where they're monsters, evil by nature...

Obi-Wan shivered, almost putting down the pad. _What could they know about it?_

_“However you feel about the romance, or the writing quality, the fact remains that not only is this series the only series that portrays phoenixes as having the capacity to do good, it also has reached a truly spectacular number of young minds. Those young people now have been introduced to an idea: a phoenix is a person, and just like other people, have choices to harm or to be kind to the people around them. To use their skills for the benefit of themselves, their close ones, and their societies. This is an idea that has never been voiced to a wide audience before, and for that alone, we must thank the authoress.”_

Obi-Wan frowned at the small image of the book cover.

That Force-awful flare of glow-in-the-dark wings across the cheeks of the main character's love interest...

_But isn't that just the point? The only people who believe in a 'good phoenix' are kids who haven't faced the world yet?_

He ignored the quiet statistic on one side of the page, a poll for the forum users' ages.

Many were over the age of twenty-five.

 

* * *

 

**Present**

 

Since the 501 st  and 212  th  were on leave back on Coruscant, and Anakin was... well, let's be honest: Skyguy was with the Senator, and Obi-Wan was hiding somewhere, miserable and alone, Ahsoka had decided to ask Rex for ideas on how to convince Anakin that the world was bigger than he thought it was. Without, you know, convincing Skyguy to hate _Ahsoka_ too.

She'd just reached the barracks when she paused, shocked.

Fives and Waxer were walking out, and they looked... _different..._

Fives had thick white eyeliner, and purple dust sharpening his cheekbones, and a complimentary purple dye all through his hair. Waxer 's eyeliner and shadow was even thicker, black, and he had careful tookaseyes made with the shadow. He'd shaved his eyebrows and drawn them on, and his lips were colored a matte black.

Fives wore black baggy pants with chains and silver spikes decorating them. He had on a loose black shirt that had spikes on the shoulders, and silver wings drawn on the back.

Waxer was in a surprisingly flattering black-on-black suit. That looked like it had stepped out of several centuries ago. He carried a gentleman's walking cane, had a single monocle over his eye, and had a top hat with a long maroon feather in it, secured by a little silver skull.

“Uhhhh....”

“Commander,” Fives nodded, the spiked collar around his throat making a clinking noise.

Ahsoka scratched at her left lekku. “Where are you going?”

“There's a Diaev club a couple levels down,” Fives explained.

Ahsoka shook her head. “I didn't know that was the music you liked.”

“What? Oh. No. I like durasteel. Steelheads are not the same thing as Diaevs, though we get confused for one another a lot.”

 _Yep. It's the black and the hairstyles._ _And the skulls._ “And you, Waxer?”  
“We're not there for the music or company, though we'll enjoy both.” Waxer smiled and bowed low, sweeping his hat off his head. Ahsoka saw a pattern of swirls carefully painted on his shaved skull. “We're there to see if this one is phoenix-friendly.”

“I... see?”  
“Diaev folks are rather comfortable with the concept of shadow creatures. There's even places where people pretend to be blood drinkers,” Waxer explained. “We're looking for one where a phoenix would just be relaxed without being hassled, without having to hide who they are.”

 _Aww..._ “Can I come?”

“Tourists stick out rather much,” Fives hedged. “It might not be particularly enjoyable for you. The clubs are where people can get together _without_ the ogling they get day-to-day.”

“I won't ogle,” Ahsoka promised, meaning every word. “Please?”

Waxer shrugged. “Alright. But we'll disguise you a bit.”

“You'll paint my face white with black marks down from the eyes and at the corners of my mouth?”  
Both men choked.

“The shriekhawk? Ah... we care about you far too much to let you wander into a Diaev club wearing the shriekhawk. Come on, let's get you sorted.” Waxer led the way while Fives gave an emphatic nod.

 

* * *

 

It ended with Ahsoka wearing baggy black pants and a black shirt that hung long on her, forming something of a tunic. They belted it close, painted her lips black, applied eye decorations, and Waxer carefully traced the white patterns on her face with outlines of black.

Feeling dwarfed in Fives' clothes, Ahsoka followed them through the maze of Coruscant to an unassuming club front. A neon light above proclaimed it to be the _Hawkbat Cave_ , and in they stepped.

That left the normalcy for Ahsoka far, far behind.

She stood just inside the doorway and felt her eyes go wide.

This was... this was like nothing she'd imagined.

The club was populated with adults— some clearly aging, others on the gentle side of forty. Music with a soft pulsing beat and a voice hissing out lyrics—

There were some people dancing, but none of them together.

“Music's going to get loud and fast soon. It's cyberdiaev night.”

“What's that?” Ahsoka asked.

Fives nodded to various people around the club, wearing dreadlocks made of what looked like bouncy plastic, goggles on their foreheads, and a black-and-neon color scheme.

A lot of toxic waste symbols were incorporated into their look, some even had it painted on their faces. Ahsoka did a doubletake when she passed by a woman who had _droptacs_ with the symbol on her eyes.

“Looking like a tourist,” Waxer murmured in her ear.

_Oh. Right. Seen all this before._

Waxer received a few compliments for his outfit, and Ahsoka caught sight of a woman near the back with a full ruffled skirt and lace gloves who looked like a matched set with his style.

_There's a lot of different flavors of Diaev._

And it wasn't the scraggly band of teenagers Ahsoka had half expected.

An Anzat sat at the bar, feeding tendrils gently drooped into a glass of green alcohol.

An Anzat. Not hiding.

Ahsoka felt a little hitch in her heart as she looked around, but no one seemed to be bothered by the fact that the man at the bar consumed other sentients' brains to survive.

_Could Master Obi-Wan find peace in one of these places?_

Could he just... _let_ the little flames in his eyes be there? Let his fire wings be visible and not have to focus on hiding them? Could he sit in one of those chairs near the back and watch the dancing, the people passing through, and not feel like a curiosity?

Simply _be_?

The music warped, shifted, a very quick beat picking up.

Those who had been dancing either vacated the floor or switch from languorous, flowing hand and foot gestures to a near-robotic and rather cheerful chaos.

_That looks... fun!_

Fives grinned, jerked his head, and Ahsoka followed him out there.

He tried showing her a few moves, how to sway from foot to foot and move her arm as if it was hinged differently.

_Oh Force, this is far more difficult than it looked!_

But she laughed, and Fives grinned, and Ahsoka enjoyed every vaguely embarrassing minute of trying to figure out how to look as skilled and fluid as the other people dancing their hearts out, alone yet all together.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Ahsoka asked as they wended their way back to the barracks. “Do you think that's the one?”

Waxer smiled, spinning his cane. “It shows the most promise so far. I've seen angels, Anzati, and a few other species most people get antsy around.”

“I saw a couple guys wearing fangs, pretending to be blood drinkers,” Ahsoka offered.

Fives sent her a rueful smile. “Ah... Commander, it's an aesthetic. The people who actually role-play that usually only do so in even safer circles, ones that are much more difficult to get into. They're the ones that get accused of not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality if they're observed, so they make a point of keeping that wind-down part of their lives separate from their business lives. There's a couple brothers really into that, but it's not my scene.”

 _Right. Because you're a steelhead._ “The... Cyber music was very different from durasteel or that other stuff?”

“Classic Diaev. In fact, some of the classic Diaev bands are now considered just plain classics to the rest of the music world as well. It's amusing to hear the occasional song that used to just be for the 'weirdos' now spark nostalgia in the normals. The winds of fashion are so fickle.”

“I saw a lot of different fashions there tonight.”

Waxer beamed. “That's the thing about Diaev. Nothing is ever really _out._ There's often a wave of something that is all over the place— usually started by one of the bands— but you can wear something from any era of the Diaev subculture, and it's fine. Right now those long-toed boots are very common, but it's still okay to wear Fives' heavy clompers.”

Ahsoka glanced down at the shiny black leather mentioned, all buckles and spikes with a platform a full two inches thick. “I get that they might be okay with Master Obi-Wan, so long as he blended in a little, but I'm not so sure he'd be okay with _them_. I mean, have you ever heard his music?” Ahsoka hadn't, but she couldn't imagine it—

Waxer smiled as if he had some secret. “He likes dark orchestral music. It's not particularly synthetic, and the percussion isn't much, but dear Force, does it send chills down the spine. Occasionally he'll let us play it through the _Negotiator's_ loudspeakers.”

“ _What_?”

Waxer held a finger up to his lips. “It's a Two-twelfth secret.”

“Does it count?”  
“It's rather spooky, it's old, it's decadent, so yes, it's welcome. He's welcome.”

Ahsoka nodded. “Now just to convince him to wear black for one night every once in a while on leave...”

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan wasn't hiding.

He was sitting in his Council seat, pressing the fingers of one hand to his closed eyelids.

The every-decade census results were in for the Republic's citizenry.

The results looked _good_ from where Obi-Wan sat.

Original generation phoenix were dying out. Their bodies just weren't regenerating anymore.

And there hadn't been another phoenix baby in a long time.

“Obi-Wan, your species is going extinct,” Mace murmured, sounding concerned. “It's alright to want that to stop.”

_I don't want it to stop. I want it to finish._

“I'm alright, Mace.”

Silence fell for a long moment.

Then... Fisto's forehead wrinkled in concern. “Obi-Wan, you do realize that reproducing wouldn't require you find a woman already pregnant and harm the baby they want. There are not-pregnant individuals out there who _can_ bear children who would be glad to help preserve a dying species. Who would be glad to bear _your_ children.”

And _that_ was where the headache was coming from.

“I'm not a breeding stud. I don't want this.”

Gazes met over the top of his head.

“More comfortable with this we would be, if confident we were, of your motives.” Yoda sent him a _knowing_ look, and it chilled Obi-Wan to the bone. “The choice for what's best for you, is this? Or grown out of your hatred of yourself and your kin, has it? _Health,_ or hate?”

And oh, Obi-Wan knew which it was.

This had nothing to do with whether he was willing to help a family who wanted a child to have a child.

It had everything to do with ending this atrocity. Now.

_Why would I make this last longer when all I've wanted has been to end it?_

Why indeed?

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of Legends (and maybe canon as well, I'm not sure) is that Bail and Breha kept trying for a baby, and every time miscarried.
> 
> This chapter will include allusions to the difficult grieving process involved for parents who have had a miscarriage. I tried to be respectful of the subject because I know dear ones who have endured it.
> 
> If you suspect that subject is not wise for you at this time, you can jump to the first set of asterisks and read the chapter from there on.
> 
> Other than the discussion of the above topic, there is no death in this chapter. Instead we get some Ahsoka & Obi-Wan bonding time, and a shameless SWTOR/Goth pun. I am remorseless about it.
> 
> One last warning: near the end, Anakin tells the Tatooine legend of the phoenix, and it does include infant murder-by-evil-shadow, with the parents helpless to stop it. Letting you guys know ahead of time, just in case.

 

“They want me to— to  _ breed _ !”

Bail had never seen his friend so distraught before— not even on Zigoola. And that had been... well, that had been  _ hell.  _ “They mean well, though, don't they? What kind of friends would they be if they  _ wanted  _ you to go extinct?”

Obi-Wan sent him a frustrated  _ look. _

“Are they asking you to end your career and raise a family?”

“No.”

“Are they asking you to be a father to these children, or to just help make sure that phoenix-kind isn't forever lost?”  
“ _ Bail. _ ”

Bail raised his hands. “But isn't this  _ exactly  _ the same situation as on Polira VII when you helped the Polirans figure out a way to not die out and lose such a vibrant, beautiful people group? You  _ advised  _ them on how many children needed to be born a year to keep their numbers from precipitating any further. You did the math, Obi-Wan, and you arranged a system where people who wanted to raise kids would end up with the babies if the Polirans giving birth didn't want to have families. You saved their entire civilization.”

Not to mention the fact that half the little boys born in the years since had been named either  _ Obi-Wan  _ or  _ Kenobi. _

“The Polirans were decent people. They deserved to live on,” Obi-Wan mumbled, staring out the window at the flow of traffic.

“And you think you're evil.”

“Any offspring I had...” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I would be responsible, if they did something terrible.”

_ It doesn't quite work like that.  _ “Your responsibility would be in the raising of the child, or in making sure it went to a home where it  _ would  _ be raised with love. That's it. After you've done what you can for them, what they choose as an adult to do— that's on them. If you chose to reproduce, and then entrusted that baby to a family who wanted it, who knew they were helping preserve a very old bloodline that is dying out? How is that  _ not  _ beautiful?”

Obi-Wan sent a half-betrayed, half-sad look to his friend.

For a long moment silence fell.

“What if one is Force-sensitive?”  
“Would the Order not raise the child surrounded by acceptance?”

“Yes. If I kept my nose out of it. I'm the only one who feels this way, but I can't seem to hide how I see it. Ahsoka... just... yes. The  _ Order  _ would raise it well.  _ I  _ would give it a complex by accident. I wouldn't be able to look at it without feeling disgusting inside.”

Bail crossed his arms, watching Obi-Wan with quiet conviction. “You despise your people for their origins. You wouldn't do that with anyone else's people. The clones—? Their origins aren't natural either. And there was great evil involved— a man selling his biological children to be child-slaves to die in a war not their own. Now  _ that  _ cruelty, that lack of care for life,  _ that  _ is evil. And yet I don't see you scorning your men for where they came from.”

“Of course not,” Obi-Wan murmured.

“Because I know you, and you believe that it's not where you come from that makes you a kind or a cruel person. It's what you decide to do with where you've been. Where you choose to go. And you know what? If all phoenix were vicious, pain-hungry things, there would be a  _ lot  _ more of them right now. You know how populations work. Your people aren't even maintaining their numbers as it is. Maybe more of them feel the way you do, and don't believe they deserve to live.”

Obi-Wan looked shocked.

Silence stretched long as the Jedi mulled over Bail's words, his forehead furrowed in a pensive knot.

Bail simply waited for him. Before Zigoola, that would have been impossible, but Bail had watched this man wade through torment to get to the other side. It gave Bail patience.

“You think that's what I'm doing?”

“Condemning an entire species to annihilation? Why is it suddenly acceptable if it just so happens to be your own?”

Obi-Wan stroked his beard, a sure sign of worry. Finally he looked to Bail, and the Senator could tell the prior conversation was  _ over.  _ “How is Breha?”  
Bail's heart clenched, and for a moment the grief made it hard to breathe.

“Another miscarriage.”

Obi-Wan's expression cleared into one of shared misery. “I'm so sorry, Bail.”

It was a popular view to look at a miscarriage as something less than the loss of a child. As if it would hurt less than if they'd already held the little one in their arms.

Bail could vouch first hand that it did  _ too  _ feel like death. The fact they never got to meet their little one didn't  _ lessen  _ the pain. The knowledge of that never-knowing was a pain all its own.

Obi-Wan couldn't understand from experience, but unlike the other friends of Bail's, Obi-Wan didn't assume about Bail's heartbreak as a lack thereof. He  _ felt  _ it.

And if there was one thing Obi-Wan Kenobi understood and sympathized over, it was loss.

Obi-Wan could barely reach Bail's shoulder, but he still managed to grip it, a gesture of silent solidarity.

Bail and Breha wanted a baby. Just one, precious baby, but they couldn't keep them alive.

And gods, did it hurt.

 

* * *

 

Ahsoka lay on her stomach on the floor of her cabin, chin resting on her arms, knees bent with her ankles in the air, listening through the music examples Fives and Waxer— with help from some of the other boys— had put together.

Each was labeled with its tiny subgenre, and  _ numbered,  _ showing the chronological progression of how styles grew and mutated and sashayed into other directions.

Some of it Ahsoka found pleasing, some of it made her montrals buzz uncomfortably, and as far as  _ Obi-Wan's  _ music went—

_ Boy  _ was that stuff creepy.

It didn't have lyrics, and there was no loud beat, and you could  _ tell  _ that the musicians had given their lives to becoming the best in their field. Ahsoka might have even called it historical, but for the eerie quality that made her skin crawl and gave her the feeling something malevolent was  _ watching  _ her.

_ Holy kark, they put that through the entire  _ Negotiator _? _

And... what? Did they turn the lights down half-way too and drink fancy wines in expensive evening wear, just reveling in the low-level dread of it all, waiting for a beautiful ghost or something to kill them all one by one?

_ Does Anakin know Obi-Wan likes this stuff? _ Certainly, it had a majesty to it, and the instruments were beautiful, but—

Footsteps passed in front of her door, then paused. A hesitant knock followed.

“Come in,” Ahsoka called, shutting off the music.

Obi-Wan stood there, a funny look on his face. “I thought I heard Dance of the Night playing...”  
“Probably.” Ahsoka checked the list. “Yep.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is it your taste?”  
“I think it's a bit creepy for me,” Ahsoka admitted, sitting up and displaying the guide the boys had scribbled out for her. “I'm going through different kinds of music to see what I think. I went with some of the boys to a Diaev club last night, and the music was interesting.”

Surprise crossed Obi-Wan's face. “They were playing dark orchestral?”

“No. Fives called it classic Diaev, and then it was cyber night.”  
A light shudder passed through Obi-Wan. “Ah. Yes.”

“ _ What _ ?” Ahsoka demanded, laughing. “Is it  _ that  _ bad?”

Obi-Wan stepped into the room and folded himself to sit on the floor across from her, holding out his hand to accept the guide pages. “Brings back awful memories. Three masters back in my lineage is Yoda, if you recall.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Was that a sly amusement slipping into his eyes? “Yoda's fond of this... odd nature music with a funny synthetic beat.”

“No,” Ahsoka protested, shocked and delighted.

Obi-Wan sent her a wicked smirk. “Oh, yes. Think of what you heard last night and add in funny insect noises and bird calls, and make the warped musical notes more...  _ plastic.  _ Brittle, you know? From before they really figured out how to make it work  _ well. _ And the lyrics were always frightfully explicit and crooned. Imagine Padawan me standing outside his door, ready to knock and have tea with him, listening to this terribly embarrassing music leaking out of the tea room, and hearing Yoda hum a bit, then chime in for some of the lyrics— backwards, of course, but that didn't make them any less embarrassing. I would stand there and just  _ hope  _ that no one would walk by before Yoda got it shut off and the door open.”

Ahsoka wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh, but  _ Force  _ she wanted to, and what was that  _ humor  _ in Obi-Wan's Force signature? She'd seen his sly cracks at people every once in a while, but never something so thoroughly irreverent.

“And Dooku?” she asked, not sure if she should, but wanting to know.

Obi-Wan flicked his way through the music the clones had given her, and selected something. “There is a long history of alternative music in our legacy.”

A soprano voice poured forth a strong melody, accompanied by beautiful stringed instruments and something that sounded like a keyed wind instrument.

“This isn't alternative, though,” Ahsoka countered.

Obi-Wan flicked an eyebrow up. “Just give it a moment.”

A pause, a lingered note, and then roiling electronic music underscored the melody as the woman continued singing with her impressive voice. In the background, a deep bass voice growled out words so mangled Ahsoka couldn't even figure out what he was saying.

“Operatic durasteel,” Obi-Wan explained with something akin to a grin.

Ahsoka's eyes widened. “ _ Dooku _ ?”

“To rebel against Yoda in his teenage years, he veered away from the pacifistic make-love, one-with-nature-let's-wait-for-visitors-to-our-planet music into this. He was part of a little indie band, performed with them whenever he was on Coruscant. He sang the undercurrent part.”

“Oh  _ Force, _ ” Ahsoka giggled, thinking of Obi-Wan's grandmaster's deep voice.

Obi-Wan turned down the volume a bit. “I saw some still holos once, and I actually have one of the recordings. Qui-Gon had that one hidden away, so once I returned after Naboo, it remained. Dooku stole most of Qui-Gon's things when he walked away. I returned from the funeral to find the room nearly empty.”

_ Ouch. _

Obi-Wan sent her a knowing, soft smile. “Thank you, but it's alright. Now, anyway. But I'll have to show you, some time. Dooku wore this leather jacket and trousers of an  _ atrocious  _ cut.”

“I wonder what would happen if we were to blast that out on loudspeakers on the field of battle sometime,” Ahsoka mused.

That sly gleam in his eyes again— “That might be possible to arrange. A copy, though. In case it gets captured. I would hate to lose the original.”

“And... your master, then? If that's what  _ Dooku  _ liked?”

Obi-Wan brought up a different song, one that Ahsoka recognized as being similar to the first music at the club. “I don't know when he decided it was his favorite, but I suspect it was after he discovered Dooku's aversion to it.”  
“Why? It's not anywhere near as in-your-face as  _ his, _ ” Ahsoka pointed out.

Obi-Wan chuckled. “He never stopped complaining about it, in a stiff, dignified sort of way. Even though Qui-Gon had been an adult  _ years  _ before he took me as his apprentice. 'The singers are tone deaf.' 'There's no melody— the singers are operating in a monotone.' 'There's only  _ three notes in the whole bloody song _ !'”

“Well...” Ahsoka hedged. “He's not exactly  _ wrong _ .”

“Bela Kiwiiks is dead. Undead, undead, undead,” Obi-Wan mocked, surprising Ahsoka.

_ I bet he would sound very nice if he was singing for real instead of for humor. _ Because... he didn't sound bad even when  _ trying  _ to sound awful.

“So if Qui-Gon was into classic, and you like orchestral without lyrics—”

“Oh, some of it has a haunting choral—”

“And  _ you like orchestral  _ with giant collections of people singing indecipherable and creepy syllables, then what is Anakin into? I don't ever hear him listening to music. It's the opposite of you, right? But he idolizes Qui-Gon, so maybe classic, with some durasteel thrown in?” The chaos of Fives' music of choice seemed a match to Anakin's personality, at any rate.

Obi-Wan huffed an amused scoff. “I'm afraid that the legacy of alternative music tastes ended with me. Anakin has always loved Peri Kati. And Yoncé. And Rhian.”

“Oh my Force.” Ahsoka stared at Obi-Wan, wondering if he was joking, and then read the honesty there. “Oh  _ Force,  _ I can see you all out jogging together, Yoda in tie-dye, the rest of you in black, and Anakin in pastels.” A peal of laughter escaped her, the image tickling her. “He didn't even  _ try  _ for something alternative, did he?”

Obi-Wan grinned. “Now, to be fair, it was vastly different from what he'd experienced on Tatooine, and  _ anything  _ compared to that is an improvement.”

“His teenage years must have driven you  _ mad, _ ” Ahsoka guessed, grinning at the thought of it. Anakin's door slammed in fury, music blaring out, Obi-Wan cringing and retreating from the enthusiastic, bouncy  _ cheer. _

“Very nearly. And you? What do you like?”

Ahsoka really,  _ really  _ hated that question. “It's not easy to explain. I'll like one song, and nothing else the band has ever played, then another song that's in a completely different style by another singer, and then again, nothing else of theirs. It's annoying, since I'm never sure where to look to find new songs to love. But anyway. The boys and I were trying to figure out a way to coax you into that Diaev club.”

“No coaxing required. Name the day.”

“You have something to wear?” Ahsoka asked, terribly curious now.

He narrowed his eyes at her, but not in a severe way. “Ahsoka Tano, one may have to conform one's attire to the unsympathetic business world, but one can never take the eerie whimsy out of a heart.”

 

* * *

 

Anakin sat on the edge of the balcony that Padmé's living room opened out into. Somewhere up there, out of sight, most of the clones— and undoubtedly his master and padawan— were moving back onto the ships in preparation for heading out tomorrow.

“Are you going to tell me, before you go?”

Anakin hung his head, sighing. Of course Padmé would want to know what was bothering him, carving into his attention. “It's Obi-Wan,” he said at last. “He's not who I thought he was.”

“Really?” Padmé asked, sounding both surprised and skeptical as she moved to sit down beside him. “And this terrible flaw in character is... what?”

Anakin shook his head.

“This isn't because he's in love with Satine, is it,” Padmé reproached.

Anakin scrunched his nose. “No. Of course not. Why would I be angry about that?”

“Because you  _ were  _ angry back when you thought he had a thing for Taria Damsin. You sort of ranted about hypocrisy for over an hour.”

_ And then she died. Horribly.  _ Obi-Wan had known all along the woman would succumb to the disease Anakin hadn't even known she'd been fighting. Now Obi-Wan's tenderness towards her made sense.

It had also been a little embarrassing once Anakin learned Taria had been gay. He'd been so convinced Obi-Wan and that woman had a sexual relationship.

Anakin didn't like thinking of that entire business. It hadn't made him look, or feel, very good.

“I don't understand his priorities, but if he wants to love Satine only a little bit, that's on him.”

Padmé sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Anakin... Satine is a very dear friend, and I know she is  _ happy _ . What they have may not make sense to us, but it does to  _ them.  _ And that's all that should matter, right?”

_ They're lying. _ It seemed obvious to Anakin, why wasn't it to anyone else?

“None of that is what's wrong right now,” Anakin admitted. “He's an illusion, Padmé. The person we think we know is camouflage, covering up something... hideous.”

Padmé pulled back to study his face. “What's he done now?”

She sounded just a little patient and rueful, as if—

_ I do not complain about him all the time! _ And when he did, he had  _ good reasons  _ to!

“He's a phoenix, Padmé.”

“What does that mean?”  
Anakin frowned. “Naboo doesn't have phoenix legends?”  
“You'd have to elaborate a bit?”  
Anakin's shoulders sagged. “The story on Tatooine goes like this: long ago there was a couple who loved one another with everything they had. They decided to risk having a baby, in spite of how dangerous it was. But there was an evil shadow who craved the woman. Every time it tried to make advances towards her, she shunned it, because she could see how vile it was. Finally it took the form of a beautiful man, trying to gain her attention, but her dedication to her lover turned her away from it even when she could no longer recognize it for what it was.”

Anakin scowled, then felt Padmé's hand on his own. He looked down to find his metal fingers clenched tight, Padmé's thumb slowly caressing his knuckles. He tried to ease his grip, but couldn't seem to.

“The lovers conceived, and in spite of the fear, they felt great joy. The shadow saw it and hated it, hated them for it. If it couldn't have what it wanted, it would have the last laugh. So it approached them while they slept, and placed its hand over the woman's stomach. It left some darkness behind even as it retreated from the house. The darkness killed the tiny child, then curled up in its place. For the next several months the woman suffered through the pregnancy, giving nutrients she needed to the murderer she harbored, not knowing it wasn't the child she'd so desperately wanted. They reveled in their joy right up until the birth.”

Anakin froze up, unable to finish the story the way he had heard it, so many times. Memories came hard and cruel, filling in the tale with something far too real to speak aloud.

“They found out when it was born. It was accursed, something monstrous. Not human, and certainly not theirs. And when they tried to kill it, they couldn't. It just kept coming back. It grew up haunting the village. It could never be driven off, and everyone who felt its presence near felt their joy leached out of them.”

Padmé hummed. “That sounds like a frightening tale to hear as a child.”

_ Worse, when you see it happen and realize it's not just a story. _

“But you're saying that Obi-Wan is a creature who reproduces by gifting a child to a surrogate mother of another species? Curious. I wonder if they evolved that way because they had no females of their own.”

Anakin grimaced. “They're not natural, Padmé. Trust me. I looked it up in the Temple archives, back when I first got there.” The librarian had said he could look up any subject, and find all the known facts about it. So to test the claim and see if it were true, he looked up the monster of his childhood. He knew quite a bit about that, so if the archives missed it, he would know they were incomplete.

He'd found... a lot.

“The Sith created the first one, out of alchemy. Sorcery and hatred.”

Padmé shrugged. “Why would it matter how the first one came to be?”

“What are you talking about? It  _ matters. _ ”

“I don't know about that. In ancient times, Naboo was a prison colony, the people sent there to work the mines for terrible crimes. In the millennia since then, we have made our  _ own  _ destiny, we've defined  _ ourselves _ . And Anakin, you know who your mother was, but you know nothing at all about Shmi's parents, or her grandparents. That hasn't stopped you from being a good person, someone who saves lives and protects the helpless.”

Anakin frowned. “He should have told me.”

“We should have told him we were serious about one another.”

“I don't know what he'll  _ do  _ if he knows!”

“Is it possible his reason for not telling you was exactly the same?”  
Anakin sent her a shocked look.

“Did he know you hated phoenix-kind? Maybe he didn't want to see the love in a precious nine-year-old's eyes turn to hate. Maybe he loved you too much, and was afraid of the pain your rejection would cause.”

_ That's not it. That's not at all... _

“Think of how many lives he's saved, Anakin.  _ Mine  _ included, and those of my people. He failed to save your mother, but he tries, Anakin. He tries so hard.”

Anakin thought of Lanteeb, of Obi-Wan's body slowly breaking as he tried to heal those far beyond his strength  _ to  _ heal. The tears in his eyes as he pushed Anakin back, refusing to give up trying to ease the suffering of perfect strangers, strangers who had considered giving the two Jedi up to the Separatists to try to keep their village from annihilation.

Obi-Wan, who sobbed late into the night they returned to the Temple after Qui-Gon's death. The sounds of his anguish muffled as if he'd stuffed something into his mouth to stay quiet, to try to not awaken the little boy in his care.

Anakin had known what that desperate need for silence  _ felt  _ like. And he hadn't at the time, but he knew  _ now  _ what kind of pain could wrench such brokenhearted tears from the quiet and brave young knight's soul.

“How did you find out?” Padmé asked at last.

Anakin drew his knees up to his chest, feeling the cold of the cell floor again. “The mercs we were looking for caught us. Mandalorians, but not Death Watch.”

At first Padmé just looked concerned, and then her eyes widened. “Oh,” she breathed.

_ Why? Why does everyone react to that name that way? _

Maybe there were some benefits to growing up out of the way, without the visceral knowledge of certain atrocities.

“They... killed him. And just kept killing him.” Anakin felt himself begin to tremble, remembered the horrible emptiness of his anguish at the loss of, the loss—

A choked sob tore through him, and he couldn't find words.

“Oh, Anakin.” Padmé's arm wrapped around him and he let himself be pulled against her, his tears feeling like acid in his eyes.

“I thought he was gone forever, and I thought I was going mad, and I can't  _ live  _ without him, I  _ need him,  _ Padmé. I didn't even realize how much until I saw him lying there  _ dead— _ ”

Her hand gently soothed his curls, and Anakin clung to her, shuddering.

“They did... terrible things to him, since they knew he could come back. And if I hadn't been there, I wouldn't even have known. He managed a smile for Ahsoka when she rescued us. How many times has he died, when I got him captured or trapped somewhere, and I  _ never knew _ because he looked unhurt when we finally got to him? Any time he complained, I always resented him and mocked him for being a whiner, but what if he'd suffered terribly and come back looking unscathed?”

 

* * *

 

“I can't seem to find  _ any  _ positive legends about phoenix.” Echo sagged onto a bench, exhaustion in his every line of muscle.

Boil frowned. “So. We make our own.”

“What are you talking about?” Dogma chided. “Legends aren't  _ made.  _ They just happen.”

“Most societies are too old to know how their legends got made, because that's too long ago and you can't talk to those people anymore. But we've only been around a decade,” Echo countered.

Rex leaned his head back against the wall and huffed. “Most of the legends we  _ had  _ got busted the instant we really  _ met  _ our Jedi. Or the day General Ti took over Kamino, whichever came first.”

“So we need new ones,” Waxer decided, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “There's three million brothers. That's enough people for a culture, right? What makes our legends any less valid than anybody else's? And it'll spread. Just gotta swap stories with the other units as we bump into them, and they can't help but share what they hear whenever  _ they  _ run into someone else.”

It was true.  _ Everybody  _ wanted to hear the stories coming in from Windu's battalion. Another vod carried out of harm's way, an entire platoon of droids crushed with the Force because they were about to take out a trapped shiny— the man was nearly a clone deity. Stern as a god, gentle as a mother.

And the clones  _ certainly  _ had legends about  _ mothers. _

“So. The phoenix myth.” Waxer clapped his hands against his knees. “I believe that a phoenix knows when a baby not yet decanted is dead but the parents don't yet know. The phoenix hears their future heartbreak, moves in to keep them safe. Gives them a baby to love instead of leaving them with empty arms.”

Tup glanced up from cleaning his blaster. “Instead of being a parasite, it's just the Force being kind. Pairing a baby who needs parents with parents who need a baby.”

Dogma stared at them in shock. “There's no evidence of that!”

“So?” Echo asked. “There's no evidence of them being evil, either, but everybody just gobbles  _ that  _ up. It'll be like people: there'll be good ones and bad ones. There's enough legends about bad ones, right?”

In the corner, Wooley could be heard murmuring to the brother beside him, “Betcha they're naturally occurring Force-manifestations created to hunt Sith, and the Sith decided to cause them trouble by claiming them to make everyone hate him. I mean: General Kenobi. Just look at him.”

“Yeah,” was the reply. “He's kindness given form.”

Cody pointed to the two in the corner. “Now  _ that,  _ I'll toast to.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

The boys of the two battalions had to draw straws to determine which five vode could accompany Ahsoka and Obi-Wan to the club.

Otherwise... they  _ all  _ would have gone, and the experiment would have been wrecked.

As it was, the pool of options had been narrowed down to those who were already comfortable in such places.

Ahsoka suspected that would lead to more brothers  _ learning  _ how to fit in, so that they would be options for the next time, if they were lucky and Master Obi-Wan didn't storm out in a huff.

Which could happen.

Ahsoka and the clones were there, scattered through the room, Ahsoka sticking close to Fives as she watched the door. She perched on a stool to be able to see between heads, and the bartender gave her a  _ look. _

“Hey, I'm not here to drink,” she promised. “I'm underage.”

He arched a painted eyebrow in her direction with a surprised and amused smile. “I was going to be a hard sell, even with the fake ID you've undoubtedly got.”

“Didn't bring a fake ID.”

“Well, then. You might not be one of the ridiculous little things that gets escorted off the premises. Every once in a while we get a few teenagers in here, thinking they own the place.”

Ahsoka simply smiled back, glancing up at Fives, who was watching the door with hawkbat anticipation.

“What if he doesn't show?” Fives asked.

Ahsoka shrugged. “I don't think that'll be a problem. He was smiling when he talked about the music. I think he misses it.”

“What if it brings back bad memories?”  
_ Memories of a time when his Master wasn't brutally murdered, when his grandmaster wasn't an evil bastard trying to kill him, and when Anakin was a grumpy— but harmless— teen whose hatred of him was clearly hormone-based and could be anticipated to clear with time? _

Ahsoka's smile faltered.

Maybe it  _ would  _ be too much.

And then she sensed him.

Glancing up, she at first didn't recognize him.  _ What? _

It took a full moment of staring before her brain began to process.

Obi-Wan's hair on the top of his head had been brushed forward, and then the ends swept back, creating a fluffy wave crest that traveled nearly the whole way back. He'd managed it without any clearly spiky gel giveaways— it looked like it was  _ meant  _ to be like that.

He'd shaved the entirety of the beard and mustache, which made him look quite a bit younger than his actual age.

His clothes were modern, with a timeless simplicity to the cut that would allow the whole thing to age well. Made of good quality natural fabrics that had been tailored to his body, the suit looked like something a moderately wealthy individual might wear if he was trying to be subtle.

Except that in its own way, there was nothing subtle at all about the statement made.

The four-piece suit was entirely black, except for his shirt, which was a subdued jewel-toned purple. He had toxic green droptacs in his eyes that seemed to erase his pupil, the only black areas being in the shape of the Jedi Order's symbol. There was a quiet ring on his left hand with a small, dark stone, and when he drew closer Ahsoka realized the buttons on his shirt were stamped with some odd, eerie design, but most people would probably miss that detail.

Slide off the ring, pull out the droptacs, and the only second glances he'd be garnering out in the rest of society would be the kind of people realizing they wanted to give him their comm frequency.

Ahsoka tried to play it unconcerned, but Obi-Wan leveled her with a smirk once he reached her.

“You look disappointed, my dear.”  
“To be perfectly honest, I was looking forward to see how outlandish you might look.”

Fives huffed a chuckle. “Ahsoka, this is Covert Diaev, or Business Diaev. The goal is to not frighten employers, but still be true to one's self.”  
“Though most would go for a small stud in one ear over the droptacs,” Obi-Wan admitted. “But I haven't had a chance to wear them in... well over a decade.” The result of his pause to mentally tally the numbers left him looking just a bit perturbed. “Enough of that. Shall we?” He held out his hand to Ahsoka and bowed.

Ahsoka grinned and bowed back. “Why not?”

She identified the music playing as Classic Diaev, and asked, “So Fives showed me cyber, but I think the dancing is different—?”

“Oh,  _ yes.  _ Your feet might shuffle a bit, you might take a little step in or back, but you're going to stay in roughly the same place. Now watch.”

Obi-Wan proceeded to demonstrate the different dance movements Ahsoka could see being used across the floor, but her grandmaster added in a subtle element of self-mockery as he explained them.

Ahsoka most liked the  _ picking cursed jogans _ , a motion that included reaching up above her head, hand curved as if to pull a fruit from a vine, and then carefully drawing it down to inspect it, peering into the strange non-thing she “held” with either a look of wonderment or serenity or alarm, depending on what the dancer felt like at the time.

It didn't take her long to figure out why the foot movements were restrained the way they were— to keep safe the people navigating on truly high platform shoes, or deadly high heels. It interested Ahsoka to note that some of the men here wore heels as well, without it seeming to have anything to do with being a gender statement.

Obi-Wan caught the line of her gaze. “Curious?”  
“It's a tiny world of its own.” Ahsoka attempted one of the more in depth hand spinning wavy gestures, but it fell apart in the middle. “What the outside thinks doesn't matter, here.”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Oh, it matters somewhat. You'll find many of us aren't quite so benevolent that we don't try to alarm the normals on occasion. I may have threatened to hex some bullies in my day.”

“You  _ didn't! _ ”

“Oh, it's bad form, and doesn't help ease the stigma surrounding us, and I'm not proud of it, but there is a form of enjoyment to be had— mean though it might be— of seeing the momentary flicker of unsurety in their eyes. Keep in mind I was fourteen, though. Qui-Gon cured me of it.”

Ahsoka sent him a  _ don't-banthakark-me  _ look. “Are you serious? You  _ still  _ pick behaviors to unsettle people or offend sensibilities. You're  _ always  _ flirting with Ventress and Grievous,  _ because  _ you sense it makes them uncomfortable!”

“What?  _ Me _ ? I cannot fathom what you're talking about,” scoffed Obi-Wan, and he managed to keep the innocent chagrin through the rest of the song.

 

* * *

 

“Tup, have you seen Obi-Wan?”

Anakin might not have felt  _ ready  _ for this conversation, but he also feared putting it off indefinitely.

The trooper looked up, slightly wary. “He's at the club.”  
“What club?” Anakin asked, baffled. Was there some club Obi-Wan frequented?

Tup shrugged and gathered up the scattered pieces of his armor as if he would retreat from the rec room to the barracks.

Huh-uh. He was  _ not  _ going to let him slip away that easy.

“What club? That's an order, Tup.”

 

* * *

 

When Tup had hesitantly suggested Anakin might want to change into something more fitting before going, Anakin had assumed he meant sexy. Because surely Tup had thought Anakin was going there to pick up a girl.

But as Anakin stood near the door feeling unspeakably awkward, and experiencing glances that swept him as if he were an intruder and a curiosity, he began to realize Tup had meant something completely different instead.

_ I took a wrong turn. _

He was just going to inch his way out of here, and none of the black-clad fang-wearing individuals would chase after him—

And then he saw Ahsoka. Dancing.

It didn't take an expect to recognize she was still learning, but with her usual self confidence, all she projected was humor towards her mistakes and a determination to master this new skill.

But who was that  _ guy  _ dancing  _ with  _ her?

Forgetting his own spectacle status, Anakin charged in, ready to deck the guy, whose build said he was far too old to be dancing with Anakin's  _ padawan. _

Ahsoka's eyes widened as she caught sight of him, and the offending individual spun around to face the hostility headed his way.

Anakin sensed Obi-Wan first. The shock, the sudden emotional retreat for safety. Then he saw the flinch in his master's expression.

_ He thinks I'm angry at him for spending time with Ahsoka,  _ Anakin realized.

Though, with Ahsoka's good sense, Obi-Wan, and the troopers Anakin spotted scattered around, Ahsoka should be safe enough. Unless this was actually a front for a crime boss. Probably was, the people here were freaks.

And then his gaze snapped back to Obi-Wan's chin in shock. “Your  _ beard is gone! _ ”

 

* * *

 

That wasn't quite what Obi-Wan had expected to come flying out of Anakin's mouth, but perhaps if that was the chief offense currently in Anakin's view, perhaps the night wouldn't end up in bloodshed?

“Hey Master, watch this,” Ahsoka crowed, proceeding to put three of the different gestures together in a row without stumbling on any of them.

Obi-Wan felt himself smile. It felt nice to see her taking interest in something other than what was absolutely necessary to keep her  _ alive  _ on the field of battle.

“What are you doing?” Anakin asked of Ahsoka, bewildered. “You're not one of  _ these. _ And  _ you _ ,” he turned to Obi-Wan, “grew  _ up.  _ You aren't this anymore!”

“You don't stop being a Jedi if you're in clothes other than your robes,” Ahsoka retorted. “And a Diaev in circumstances where they cannot wear what they like best because of discrimination doesn't cease being one if that remains in their heart. Master Obi-Wan likes spooky music, he has a grim sense of humor, and he's fond of old, decadent books.”

Anakin stared at her in shock.

 

* * *

 

“Stay here, Ahsoka,” Anakin directed. “Obi-Wan and I need to talk. Alone.”

Dread filled Obi-Wan's eyes and made Ahsoka's heart hurt. He didn't deserve to be hurt worse.

She gave Anakin a smile, caught a hand belonging to each of her masters, and said, “Okay, let's go!”

Anakin groaned, clearly thinking she'd misheard him.

_ Good.  _

She towed them out of the club and into the quiet street out front.

“So, master. What's up? Do we have a new mission?”

Anakin's gaze slid to the side, and he rubbed at the back of his neck. “No. I just needed to talk to Obi-Wan, before we got sent out again.”

“I understand,” Obi-Wan murmured, though he looked devastated. “I will request another posting.”

An ugly frown crossed Anakin's face. “You want to  _ leave  _ me?”

“I want you to be happy. And you can't even look at me anymore.”

_ This is a disaster. _

“You  _ lied  _ to me!”

Obi-Wan's lip curled. “As if you don't, every day to my face. Hate me for my species, if you will, but don't hate me for being  _ just like you _ .”

“I am  _ nothing  _ like you!”

_ Okay. Time for drastic measures. _

But Obi-Wan's face had lost all indignation, morphing instead to quiet grief and...  _ pride _ ? 

“What?” Anakin growled. “What is this face?”  
Obi-Wan's reply was soft. “You  _ are  _ different from me. You're a decent being, and a good man.” He turned around, as if to walk away.

“I don't— I don't  _ lie  _ to you,” Anakin protested, sounding small now.

Obi-Wan paused and looked back, an eyebrow arching. He shifted that incredulous gaze to Ahsoka, who rolled her eyes in agreement. “We  _ know,  _ Anakin.”

“Know what? You guys are paranoid.” Now he sounded nervous.

But at least he wasn't angry anymore. Just scared.

_ My master, scared of so very many things. _

“It's okay, Master,” Ahsoka murmured. “And  _ she  _ knows we know. It's okay.”

Anakin stared at one, then the other. “But  _ you, _ ” he accused Obi-Wan, “would have gone to the Council if you so much as  _ thought— _ ”

“I don't understand why you are so determined to believe I don't trust you.” Obi-Wan turned around and crossed his arms over his chest, a surprisingly vulnerable gesture. “As if I hadn't been there, time and again when you saw the woman you love in danger, but you chose to do the right thing anyway. As long as you fight for everyone in need of your care, not just her, you're not attached. I do not fear your love for Padmé, Anakin, because I do not fear  _ you.  _ You don't let fear of the possible stop you from doing the right thing  _ now. _ ”

Anakin's brain clearly shorted out. For a long moment he could find nothing to say, and then what he  _ did  _ find was a simple, “But... you  _ don't  _ trust me.”

“ _ Why  _ do you  _ believe  _ that?” Obi-Wan demanded, clearly frustrated. “Do I not  _ routinely  _ put my life in your hands? Not only in battle, or on missions, I  _ fripping let you drive! _ ”

Ahsoka's eyes went wide and then she tried to draw her presence in a bit, to try to keep herself inconspicuous.  _ Talk it out. Come on. This needs to happen. _

Anakin frowned, shaking his head. “You don't—”

“When  _ Satine  _ was in danger,  _ who did I choose  _ to come with me to help me protect her?  _ You. _ Why do you think I  _ requested  _ to be assigned the Open Circle fleet with you instead of taking a few years' independence like most masters do after knighting their padawans?  _ I liked your company!  _ Far from wanting to get away from you for a while, I  _ wanted— _ ” Obi-Wan's voice quit and he stared down at the pavement for a long moment. 

Anakin stood stock still in mute shock.

“I trust you with how I feel about Satine. I trust you with my life, almost every day in this  _ wretched  _ war. I trust you to do the right thing even when there's no one there to witness it. And I actually believe that you are the kindest man I have the privilege of knowing, but you don't ever  _ listen when I try to tell you.  _ You brush me off, assume I'm saying something else, assume I'm just  _ comfortable  _ around  _ anyone,  _ though you've never,  _ ever  _ seen that to be the case. You don't seem to know me at all, in spite of me trying to  _ show you  _ me. You've got some pasteboard cutout with my face on it, and you've put all these  _ horrible things  _ all over it, and how am  _ I  _ supposed to compete with that? How in the Force's name did you end up with it, anyway, because you didn't have it as a kid. You just saw  _ me. _ And then you didn't anymore, and I thought it was hormones, but...” Obi-Wan shrugged. “Why haven't you interrupted me? You always interrupt, unless you've zoned out. Are you zoned out?”

“No.” Anakin didn't move.

Obi-Wan's voice dropped even quieter. “If you hate me so much, why were you so angry when I thought you wanted me to leave?”

“I don't  _ hate  _ you.”

Obi-Wan spread his arms wide. “I am being honest. As honest as I know how to be. This is all I know about myself, and yet you're  _ still  _ lying to me.”

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut.

Silence ticked for several more painful moments.  
“I don't know why I feel so strongly. But, fine, sometimes I feel very...  _ negative. _ About you.”

“Oh, I feel it.”

Anakin looked just a little ashamed. “It just... you never listen to me. You never praise me. You don't trust me. You're disappointed in me, and you think I'm just going to fail all the time, even though I'm trying my hardest.”

“Did you not hear a  _ word  _ I said just now? Anakin, this isn't the first time I've tried to get through to you. Not the first time I've... bared my soul to you, and you just stab me like that.”

Ahsoka considered the two years she'd known them, all the times Obi-Wan would send a wave of gentle pride or strengthening Anakin's way. The times when Obi-Wan would say, “Well done,” after a spar, or a particularly difficult mission. Yes, they bickered, but Obi-Wan spoke of Anakin to other people with absolute confidence, whether Anakin was in the room to hear it or not. And on the battlefield, Master Obi-Wan would do  _ insane  _ things, just  _ knowing  _ Anakin would have his back.

“I don't... I don't  _ gush  _ feelings all over the place, Anakin. It's not who I am. But I have  _ tried  _ to make myself heard, even if my emotions seem quiet to you.”

Anakin frowned again, the shock wearing away into stubborn denial. “No, I  _ feel  _ your disappointment.  _ All the time,  _ just oozing around the bond. You're ashamed of me.”

Obi-Wan stared at him as if he'd lost his mind, and then he threw down his shields with such determination that Ahsoka winced and tried to look away.

_ He's coming unraveled.  _ Anakin's reaction to Obi-Wan's species may have been the last thing Obi-Wan could bear, but so many other things had weakened the supports of Obi-Wan's strength that he just couldn't take one more thing. Definitely not such a big thing.

It was uncomfortable to witness, and Ahsoka began to regret following them out here after all.

Instead of looking away, Anakin was sifting through  _ everything,  _ as if he had a right to it, as if he was seeking justification of every vile thing he believed of his former master.

Obi-Wan winced but didn't pull back. Clearly this had been his intention with this maneuver.

_ In verbal battle the way he is in an actual duel. _

Ahsoka shuddered. She wasn't sure she ever wanted to risk so much in either type of battle. She wanted to go  _ home  _ after each fight, after all.

And then Obi-Wan pushed against Anakin's Force signature. “Let. Me. In,” he rasped. “Let me  _ see  _ this disappointment you think I'm sending.”

It surprised Ahsoka when Anakin complied, letting him in just far enough to inspect the bond, and no farther. Anakin  _ never  _ let  _ either  _ of them in.

Not that anyone ever really needed to go  _ in.  _ He spilled what he thought all  _ over  _ the damn place. If he had a serious issue with his brain-to-mouth filter, he had  _ none  _ for what he stuffed into other people's brains through the Force at  _ all.  _ Rather rude, actually. He made Force sensitives near him shield just to keep from having his personal being invade their very minds— a private place.

“What is that?” Obi-Wan asked, tone dropping cold and vicious.

Ahsoka, alarmed now, peered in to where the two of them were inspecting something, and discovered that right around Obi-Wan's bond with Anakin, something awful and viscus had formed.  _ Another  _ bond, something elusive to touch and foul.

“Who put that there?” Obi-Wan demanded.

Anakin stuttered, as shocked as any of them to see it.

“You sensed lack of trust, and a steady stream of doubt from this general direction in your mind and you just assumed it was me. You didn't even go to look?”

“Of  _ course  _ not! I expected it to be there! Why would I look closer?”

“Why would you  _ expect it _ ?”

“Because everyone  _ knows  _ how you just barely tolerate me!”

“ _ Who knows _ ? Who has  _ ever  _ said anything to you like that?”

“They don't have to  _ tell  _ me, it's in their  _ faces _ !”

“Reading faces requires you to know for a  _ fact  _ they're actually thinking of  _ you  _ and not their own self-centered problems, Anakin! Nobody thinks about  _ you  _ every fripping second of the day! Force  _ damn  _ your arrogance!”

“Even  _ Palpatine sees it _ !”

Silence fell.

Obi-Wan stood so close to Anakin now, gaze searching Anakin's eyes, frozen in the Force.

“ _ Palpatine _ ?” he asked at length, sounding bewildered. “I've spent maybe forty minutes in his company in the last decade. How would he know anything about who I am deep inside?”

Anakin didn't reply, and the shields edged closer, threatening to throw Obi-Wan out again.

Ahsoka stayed safely outside while peering in, she had no interest in getting smashed in the Force-nose when Anakin's patience finally snapped.

“When was the last time you meditated?” Obi-Wan asked, studying the strange, putrefying growth.

The response came back automatic: “Yesterday.”

“Not last time you sat and stewed in how frustrated you are,” Obi-Wan countered, somehow sounding genuinely patient. And worried. Very worried. “When is the last time you actually looked inside your mind to take stock of what's in there?”

Unease leaked from Anakin. “It was with you,” he admitted, sounding reluctant.

“That was before your knighting, Anakin. Before Geonosis.”

Anakin shrugged. “I didn't want to look inside. And then you were healing, and then you didn't have the authority to  _ make  _ me anymore, so I just... didn't.”

_ Oh, Force. _

This, more than  _ any  _ hollow lecture Anakin had tried to give her, told Ahsoka what  _ not  _ being familiar with your internal state might look like.  _ Holy kark. I'm going to meditate once we get out of this immediate crisis. _

And actually fripping  _ pay attention. _

“This thing grew while you weren't looking,” Obi-Wan murmured, studying it closer. “It's deep.” He took a step back, as if realizing he was very close in Anakin's physical personal space. “Do you want to keep it?”

“ _ No.  _ What  _ is  _ it?” Anakin shuddered. 

Obi-Wan reached up as if to stroke his beard, rubbed his chin instead. “It's a bond. But one created by stealth instead of claiming a place of its own. It's... Sith, Anakin.”

“Not  _ Dooku _ ? Or Ventress?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “It feels of neither.”

Anakin paled, his hand beginning to tremble. “The Sith Master?”

Obi-Wan looked helpless, and it was an expression Ahsoka  _ really  _ didn't like on him.

“Can't you just pull it out?” Anakin asked. “It's too closely tied around your bond, I'm afraid I'd pull out yours if I tried.”

Obi-Wan's eyes widened with horror. “Force, no! If you had a growth in your  _ brain  _ you wouldn't just  _ yank it out. _ We're not going to do the same thing with your mind. No. We need to get you to the surgeons who can handle this sort of thing. Make sure you don't bleed out on the floor. Or...” Obi-Wan blew out a heavy breath as he looked away. “Or alarm the owner of the other end of the bond so that it fills in and... pushes me out completely.”

“ _ What _ ?” Anakin yelped. “You think that at one point it would just, wrench you out and throw you away and  _ take your place _ ?”

“I imagine it would require a form of acquiescence on your part. Some form of surrender of your mind at least in part, voluntarily, to this other being, but I don't know it for sure. But unless you're willing to risk it, stay away from it until we can fight this.”

 

* * *

 

Instead of returning to the ships, they took shelter in the Temple, Ahsoka squeezing Anakin's hand tight before sending him on into the care of Force-bond experts.

Obi-Wan went in with him, promising them both he wouldn't leave Anakin's side until his brother was awake again and free.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Obi-Wan's hair Ewan's fluffy hair from Jack the Giant Slayer? Yes. Not going to deny that accusation.


	8. Chapter 8

 

Anakin surfaced feeling groggy. He squinted, found Obi-Wan sitting in a chair nearby, pensively staring at the floor. Obi-Wan's head came up, and seeing his former padawan awake, he moved close to lean over the med railing.

“Izzit out?” Anakin asked, mouth feeling stuffed with cotton. His brow furrowed in confusion as Obi-Wan stroked his hair back as if he were nine again.

“I need you to be very brave, Anakin,” Obi-Wan murmured. “No. They couldn't pull it out.”

Panic slammed through Anakin's entire body.

“Anakin... my life is on the line. I need you to take a deep breath with me. We found out what it's doing through our bond. Breathe. In, out. If the Sith realizes you know what he's doing, he's going to finish with me.”

Anakin's hand was shaking.

_If I can't get calm, Obi-Wan might suffer?_

He wanted to groan.

Anything but that, other than internal control.

“Nothing matters but breathing. Air, passing in, passing out. Please, Anakin.”

There was something just a little raw in Obi-Wan's voice. Something that made Anakin suspect the death Obi-Wan wanted to avoid was particularly gruesome, or  _worse_ in some way. He never sounded like this on terrible missions—

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

Following Obi-Wan's breathing, he allowed himself to empty out, to become a vessel for the Living Force to flow through him to Obi-Wan and back, creating a closed circuit.

In this moment, what came  _in_ was the only thing important, not what was coming out of him.

The temperature in the room. The muted bustle of the Halls of Healing through the closed door. The rasp of newly-washed sheets against his bare feet. The way his lungs expanded.

He took in each sensation, exploring it fully, and put no time into judging any of those things.

They were neither good nor bad, all were relevant, all simply _were,_ and he simply _was_ with them.

A shuddering breath of relief escaped Obi-Wan. “Oh, well done.” Fingers squeezed Anakin's shoulder, and Anakin observed the warmth of Obi-Wan's affection, strong and proud pouring in through the bond.

Anakin peered at it for a long moment, and the ring of filth surrounding it, and then he pulled out of his own mind and found Obi-Wan's gaze again, a calmness, a stillness within Anakin now, his mind poised and ready to be exerted to its greatest possible extent to figure out a way to fix all of this.

A predator honed in on pursuing the prey, not held back by anything, much less himself.

Nothing existing but the sky above and the grass beneath its feet as it _ran._

“Now, I'm going to explain it all to you. I need you to keep even. If we need to pause for you to re-center yourself, then we're just going to have to do it, or Master Che will have to explain the rest while I'm on the floor.”

Cold trickled into Anakin's fingers and toes.

Another breath.

“Okay,” Anakin whispered.

Obi-Wan gave a nod, pulled the chair closer and sat, leaking exhaustion. “They went in to find out exactly what we're dealing with. It's a covert bond. Its root was established when your mind was still a child, but that was hidden. Camouflaged, if you will. It's not the sort of thing that could survive with no input from its creator, so the Sith is someone who was somewhere in the crowd when you were a child, and still orbiting somewhere near you through all these years.”

A choked whimper escaped Anakin, and the trembling in his hands was back.

Obi-Wan's face crumpled. “The healers say there is no way I could have seen it, but I can't help but feel I failed, let you be prey to this Sith, that I...” Obi-Wan's voice failed and he shook his head.

_No._ “Obi-Wan, they're the best of the best. T'ra has been alive longer than Yoda, she's seen... all kinds of kark. Trust them when they say you couldn't have known. You did your best for me. Hell, it might have been in before I ever met you.”

“They said more.” Obi-Wan swiped a hand down his face. “This Sith is someone aware enough of your daily habits and your mental health routines to know when you were no longer brushing your mind teeth.”

Anakin winced. “Gross.”

“And despite our being all over the galaxy in the last two years, this Sith has had enough contact with you to be able to grow the construct. We couldn't take it out of you because it seems to be a twisted form of life bond.”

Anakin's heart sank so fast he felt just a little nauseous. “What?”  
“It was meant to be with you permanently, and the way it's twined into your important systems, it will kill you, if we remove it.”

It took a long moment to find words, while his heart pounded and he breathed, in, out, in, out— “Would it kill the Sith too?”

“No. It's one-sided that way. We couldn't follow it back to see who it belonged to. But it looks like if this Sith dies... you die as well. It's a parasitic lifebond, meant to chain you to them.”

Anakin clenched his fist.

“Padawan,” Obi-Wan whispered.

Anakin looked up from his metal fingers to Obi-Wan's frightened eyes.

_He thinks I'm going to lose myself in anger. Give the game away._

_Give_ him _away._

_Force help me._

“Help me,” Anakin choked out, squeezing his eyes shut.

Immediately Obi-Wan's hands covered his own, and the older Jedi led Anakin once again into a place of simple existing, apart from the fripped up chaos.

Anakin, Coruscant, the stars, the universe as one...

“What is it doing to you?” Anakin whispered, still feeling the warmth of growing things and of life, triumphing over the towers of duracrete on this planet, over the most difficult of environments the galaxy over,  _life_ . 

Obi-Wan's hands tightened over Anakin's own. “You know the headaches I've been having since the war. The exhaustion. The... the hopelessness.”

“I thought it was sleep deprivation and you thought it was aftereffects of your classified Sith planet mission.”

“Zigoola. Yes. It seems the Sith used that as cover. We already know they sent Bail and myself there to remove us from the picture permanently.”

Anakin shuddered.

The thought before had been awful, Obi-Wan dying alone on a planet that hated his guts. Not the  _people_ of the planet, because there were none, but the  _planet itself._ Now the thought was even worse. Obi-Wan dying again and again on a planet that took joy in tormenting him.

“The Sith has been drawing life out of me using my bond with you. I occasionally noticed a bit of a drain, but I thought you were needing it, and I was willing to give it. But it never reached you. It reached your end of the bond, and then siphoned away into the Sith bond.”

Anakin's eyes flew open, searching Obi-Wan's face. “They're getting  _stronger_ from you? Or is it trying to kill you?”

“Phoenix kind is dying out. While you were under, a few of those remaining arrived at the Temple. I didn't realize it, but Master Yoda pulled quite a few strings to reach out to them and ask them to come, despite the census identities  _supposedly_ being anonymous. The phoenix who have died and haven't regenerated seemed to have simply not had the energy to put themselves back together again. And, while I've been here waiting for you to wake up, mind healers have been scanning them. They're not Force-sensitive, but in at least three so far they have found bonds, presumably draining from them the way the Sith is from me. But I would have noticed it if they tried to place a hold inside me, so...”

Anakin felt horrible. “So the Sith used me to get to you.”

“Oh, they're after you as well,” Obi-Wan chided. “Don't you spiral into self-blame.”

“So there's some need for phoenix energy, or the Sith just wants them dead.”

Obi-Wan stood up, placing his hands behind his back and beginning to pace beside the bed. “I suspect it to be the former. The Sith is fueling the dark pall over Coruscant  _somehow._ Even if they were Valkorion himself, it would still exhaust their strength, and this Sith undoubtedly needs to not be lying flat on their bed snoring most of the time.”

“If they're going to stalk a  _kid_ around, then  _yeah._ ” Anakin felt disgusting, almost wanting a shower. “I can't believe they even know about my personal habits. It's just...  _creepy._ ”

Obi-Wan sent him a sympathetic grimace.

And then something clicked. “Why did Yoda want the phoenixes here if we had no idea this was all connected?”

“Ugh.” Obi-Wan's shoulders sagged and he looked away. “My kind is going extinct. They asked if I wanted to help preserve my species by gifting a baby to a family that wanted it. I said no. Master Yoda thinks I decided that way because I hate my kind and want them all  _dead_ and gone from the universe. So he arranged for me to meet others.”

Anakin frowned. “You clearly don't like the idea.”

“Of  _course_ not!”

“Because you hate them and yourself.”

“I— that's a  _legitimate reason_ !”

Anakin scratched at the top sheet. “I don't know,” he mumbled, thinking of the sand people. “It's... kind of one thing to not like people who have done terrible things, and sort of another to deny kids a future.”

Obi-Wan sent him a bewildered  _look._

“But okay. Why aren't the other ones procreating? Did you ask them?”  
Obi-Wan's gaze plummeted to his toes. “They don't have the energy for it.”

“Because of the bonds,” Anakin guessed.  _Creatures made mostly of spiritual energy, being drained like generators, no wonder they can't duplicate._ “So what makes anyone think you  _could_ ?”

“The Sith isn't taking as much from me, because of trying to fly under the radar so I wouldn't notice.”

“So it might really  _be_ up to you to decide the fate of an entire species based on whether or not you hold a grudge about certain members of it.”

Obi-Wan scowled. “I did  _not_ expect such a lecture from  _you,_ of all people. Your capacity for grudges is  _truly astounding,_ why in hell's name would you take issue with me keeping hold of mine?”  
“Because much as I hate Hutts, if I had to decide if all Hutts were to cease to be or if a baby Hutt should be raised with love and maybe have the chance to be a good person... I think I'd be ashamed of myself if I just signed the death order.” Scratch that. He  _would._

He couldn't leave the weight of the slaughtered Tuskens behind, even in his moments of happiest laughter. They... followed him.

_I don't want that for you._

“Don't... the Organas want a baby? Really badly?”

Obi-Wan sighed. “They can't keep them alive.”

Despite the master's usually clever mind, Obi-Wan seemed to think he'd changed the subject. Anakin decided to disabuse him of that confusion. “So... how would it be a terrible thing if they were given a baby that couldn't die? Wouldn't that make  _three_ people happy— both parents  _and_ the baby? You know they'd raise a child well, Obi-Wan. If ever a phoenix had a chance to be a decent person, it would be one raised by them.”

Obi-Wan's entire being seemed to slump. “You're probably right,” he managed to get out, but there was something  _wrong._

And then Anakin realized what it was and wanted to smack himself.  _I just insinuated that he, raised by the Jedi, isn't a decent person. Force dammit, Anakin._

Here they were in an impossible situation with no real options out, and he still managed to slap Obi-Wan with his words. _Frip._ _Fix it, fix it now._

“And with a gene donor like you... I'd be stunned if the kid  _did_ turn out bad.”

Obi-Wan sent him a  _really?_ look. “The attempted save is appreciated,” the older Jedi mumbled.

“It's not an  _attempted_ save.”  _Okay, yeah, it was._ “I'm fripping terrified right now, and your problem seems a lot less scary than mine. So.”

That brought Obi-Wan back to his side, concern washing away the tumult of his own trouble.

A soft knock at the door had them both glancing up, to find Ahsoka looking sobered. “Hey. The brain doc said it was safe to come in now.” She stepped into the room, eyes wide. “How are you feeling, Skyguy?”

_Scared karkless._ “Oh, you know, Snips. Like I sparred with you once too many times.”

“Frip,” Ahsoka groaned, startling both of the older Jedi. “That means you're  _really_ bad off. You never compliment me in a way that downplays yourself. Ever. It's always 'And your accomplishments make  _me_ look even better!'”

“What?” Anakin protested.  _That makes me sound awful._

Obi-Wan winced, and when Anakin looked to him for vindication, the traitor only gave a reluctant nod in support of Ahsoka's outrageous claim.

“Nice. Beat a guy when he's chained to a sickbed,” Anakin grumped.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan had lingered just a bit, listening while Ahsoka and Anakin chatted about anything  _but_ the bantha in the room.

At last he gave each a smile and let himself out, hoping that the privacy might allow them to actually  _talk._

He had to pass through the waiting room again to leave the Halls of Healing, and that brought him smack-dab in the middle of the collection of waiting phoenix.

He ducked his head and kept going, hoping none of them would notice—

Two pairs of feet stepped into his line of view and he paused, reluctantly lifting his gaze to find two apparently teenaged phoenix.

What shocked Obi-Wan, however, were the flames they'd painted across their faces.

Just like from those damn books Qui-Gon had never managed to force him to read.

“Why would you  _wear that_ on your face?” he blurted.

The male didn't look concerned. “Pride. And it's what the average person knows. It's a way of saying:  _remember that? I'm that._ Makes it real for people.”

“They can't treat us better if we remain just an idea,” the girl agreed.

Obi-Wan tried to step around them, but they simply shifted to get in his way again. “Excuse me.”

“Do you have any idea what you are?” the boy challenged. “You're one of the most famous Jedi,  _and_ you're a phoenix. You don't know how long we've wanted to meet you.”

_Oh, please don't._ “I don't sign autographs.”

“Good, 'cause we don't collect 'em.” The girl shrugged. “But you know, we're dying out and being sucked dry, so you'd think you could spare us a few minutes of your time.”

Obi-Wan became aware of the rest of the occupants of the room watching them in silence. It was painful.  
“You don't seem like the type who just runs past people in need,” the boy pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. “So why are you trying to run away from us?”

Obi-Wan's hesitant gaze swept the room even as he willed it to  _not._

“I'm not trying to  _run,_ ” he hedged. “I'm just not who you think I am. You're confused. Please let me pass.”

The girl scoffed. “Pff—  _please_ . We could see it in your eyes, even in the holos. Any phoenix could. The hidden flames.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” His skin was crawling. He had to get out of there.  _Now._

The boy frowned. “We knew you weren't out. It was kinda obvious. But nobody but phoenix are in this room and you're  _still_ trying to hide. I don't understand.”  
“He's ashamed. Of what he is, what we are,” a woman somewhere behind Obi-Wan spoke up.

Obi-Wan's pulse hammered in his throat. He closed his eyes, trying to retain his composure without forcibly flinging either of the kids on the floor.

_Wait... kids?_ He squinted his eyes back open again. “I thought spawn weren't being produced?”

The two teens grimaced.

“The age we look?” the girl explained, “the corresponding birthdays hit two decades ago.”

_That would make them my age or older._ “How?”

Again she grimaced, longer this time. “We were locked in a freezer all that time. Dying and coming back without ever really having a chance to do anything other than that. No breaks in between. Our bodies didn't really have a chance to grow. And most of the time was spent dead or unconscious, so our minds didn't much either.”

“That's—” The air seemed punched out of Obi-Wan's gut. He felt a trembling in his insides, and for a moment he couldn't quite see. “I'm sorry that was done to you.”

The boy quirked a sad smile. “And what, nothing's ever been done to you?”  
This time, Obi-Wan's gaze didn't skitter away from the other's, it seemed trapped there. He wasn't sure what his face said, since he seemed to have no control over it.

“Yeah,” the boy whispered. “We've spent enough time being hurt for the way we were born. So next time someone wants to hurt us for it? Everyone is going to see why.” He pointed to the paint on his face. “No one can just say  _oh, they must have done something._ They'll look at us and  _know what's happening._ It's bigotry, pure and simple, and we're not going to let them just sleep easy at night. We're people. We deserve to live.”

Obi-Wan scanned them both in the Force though he'd promised himself he wouldn't, an instinctive reaching out to find the hate he was  _sure_ would be there. He couldn't quite admit he was searching for something, anything to confirm their monster status, but he  _had_ to find  _something,_ and then escape this hellish room.

He wasn't finding it.

“Aren't you angry? Don't you want to make the people who locked you up to die  _pay_ ?”

The girl tilted her head to the side. “Yeah. I'm angry that in this day and age, we still get beaten in the streets or murdered on some worlds and the crowds just walk on by instead of intervening. But being belligerent at those people who just look the other way never makes them change. They just dig their heels in deeper. Makes them think you're aggressive, maybe earned what you got. Frip them. When we  _clearly_ have done no wrong and are attacked anyway? When we refuse to keep quiet and just let them do this?  _That's_ how we make a difference. By being a face and a voice they cannot forget, saying things they  _know are true,_ they're just too afraid to admit.”

The shaking reached Obi-Wan's hands. He glanced through the room again, saw varied reactions. Some were scowling, unimpressed with young idealism. Others smiled, fond or proud. Some simply watched Obi-Wan himself, expressions shuttered.

_They know._

Somehow they could tell he despised them, despised himself, hated it  _all._

And they didn't appreciate it.

Obi-Wan shouldered his way past the two who— in spite of their horrific experiences— wanted progress over revenge, and were willing to risk so much to fight for it.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan decided to hide in the barracks, since he could still  _sense_ the other phoenix as long as he remained in the Temple.

At first he felt justified in his flight, since the gentle songs of the clones' souls drowned out those that he just wanted to  _forget._

And then...

“Shinies, listen up. You haven't served with General Kenobi yet, but once you have, you'll understand why the Jedi Order chose for their symbol the image of a phoenix.”

Obi-Wan's eyes bugged and he nearly choked on air.  _What in hell's name?_ He approached the rec room very cautiously, and peered around the doorframe.

Five new soldiers sat on the floor, staring up at Boil.

“He's  _died_ for us, and gotten back up to fight again. Most of us only have one life to give, but he just keeps giving. When things are worst, you look into the fire and you  _recognize_ it, because fire is what burns within our General, it brings him back again and again to fight for us. He could have walked away, let Tarkin or Krennic or any of the other military vets have charge of us, kept his Jedi hands clean of the mud we wade through—”

Obi-Wan pulled back and flattened himself against the wall.

“— but he  _didn't._ Those bastards who see us as less than human, as just cannon fodder? He's kept them at bay by standing in the door and letting it close on him. He's kept us out of their hands by making sure he's always there, always with us, fighting for us on the battlefield, and in the political gatherings, and every time he takes some stupid solo mission because he thinks it can save brothers' lives.”

Waxer stepped out of the room, turning to go towards the mess hall, when he caught sight of Obi-Wan and paused, an eyebrow arching.

Obi-Wan grabbed his elbow and hurried him away before hissing, “What is all this about the Order's insignia being a  _phoenix_ ? It's not  _true!_ ”

“You can't prove it wrong, sir,” was the rather smug response he received.

And Obi-Wan couldn't even begin to come up with a reply for  _that._

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

_**Future:** _

_**What came so close to being...** _

 

Anakin strode up the empty hall as Obi-Wan was leaving the Council chamber.

It took but a moment to seize Obi-Wan's elbow and lead him to one of the large windows looking out over Coruscant.

“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked, noting the iron-like grip that immediately left his arm and the tense lines written in his brother's face.

Anakin sneered at him. “How can yo u  _ ask  _ me that? After trying to steal what I hold  _ most dear _ ?”

“I'm afraid I don't—”

“Just  _ stop.  _ No more lies. I know the Council is forcing you to reproduce—”

_ Forcing?  _ Obi-Wan thought blankly.

“You sensed our happiness, and decided to  _ take  _ it. Out of  _ everyone  _ you could have made carry your spawn, you killed  _ our baby  _ to make  _ my Padmé  _ carry  _ your child— _ ”

Obi-Wan's eyes went wide in horror. “What? I didn't— I would  _ never— _ ”

Blue-white plasma exploded through Obi-Wan's body, and shock hit long before the pain.

“You could have had any mother you chose, but you murdered my  _ baby, _ ” Anakin hissed as he pulled his saber free and turned it off.

Obi-Wan collapsed to his knees, the pain finally clawing for his breath as he curled forward over his knees. “—Wrong, I w—”

Anakin kicked him in the mouth, sending Obi-Wan all the way to the floor with an anguished gasp.

And then the knight turned and walked away.

 

* * *  
  


Anakin expected every moment to hear the alarm go up, to hear racing feet, to be apprehended by Temple Guards.

None of it happened.

It puzzled him, even as he left the Temple to go see Padmé.

It wasn't fair that Obi-Wan could die and come back, when he just  _ let  _ the people Anakin loved die— Qui-Gon, his mother, his  _ child,  _ and Padmé would die trying to give birth to the monster Obi-Wan had planted inside her—

Anakin's knuckles whitened with fury.

Force help him, he wished the death he'd just given Obi-Wan would  _ take. _

As it was, this wasn't anything near enough to pay him back for his arrogant cruelty.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon waited for Obi-Wan to call for help, to reach through the Force to  _ anyone _ , the Temple had plenty of people who would respond to even a Force-touch of pain.

And Obi-Wan was  _ full  _ of  _ that. _

Qui-Gon watched his knight crawl to the door to his room, then try to pull himself up to hit the door release.

He couldn't.

So for the next five minutes he struggled to gather enough of the Force to press it without his hands.

If he called for assistance, he had a good chance of not actually dying after all. Anakin's reaction had been hasty and ill-aimed, just a lashing out, needing to inflict pain. Left untouched, however, it would claim Obi-Wan.

For a few moments, at least.

Obi-Wan dragged himself inside his door and let it close, and immediately stopped fighting.

He lay there, staring at the wall, grief in his eyes as his form shuddered with quiet sobs.

_ He wants to die. _

_He thinks he deserves it, even though he didn't do what Anakin said he did._

Obi-Wan still thought he deserved death simply for existing.

It took two hours before the tears fell dry and his eyes unfocused. For a long heartbeat he still breathed—

And then he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Anakin couldn't bring himself to look at Padmé's stomach. “We are  _ not  _ going to have  _ his _ baby.”

“Anakin,” Padmé sighed, going tense. “I  _ told  _ you, I didn't have sex with Clovis.”

A frown furrowed Anakin's brow. “ _ Clovis _ ? No. That—  _ thing  _ inside you is Obi-Wan's. It killed our baby, and we  _ don't  _ have to keep it. You'll abort it.”

Padmé pulled away from him, shock in her eyes. “What?”  
“It's not ours, we don't have to keep it,” Anakin replied doggedly.

But Padmé wasn't having any of it. “Why in  _ worlds  _ would you think it  _ wasn't ours _ ?”

“Obi-Wan lied to us. It's alright, I forgive you. He probably did something so you wouldn't notice or remember, but he was  _ seen. _ ” Palpatine's words still felt heavy in Anakin's stomach, like a poison. Obi-Wan seen leaving Padmé's rooms, early,  _ too  _ early, in morning. “He planted a fake baby inside you. Another phoenix.”

Padmé stared at him like he'd gone mad. “He wouldn't do that to you, Anakin.  _ Or  _ to me. He's my friend,  _ your  _ brother. Besides. There are women who would  _ love  _ to help him make sure his species doesn't die out. He's not short on choices!”

“Which makes his betrayal all the sharper.”

“Back up.  _ Who  _ saw  _ what _ ? Tell me  _ exactly,  _ because that kind of accusation  _ cannot  _ be made lightly—”

“I trust the source.”

“Even more than you do Obi-Wan?”  
Anakin's scowl deepened.  _ She speaks as if she knows. Did she— was it more than just Obi-Wan taking our  _ baby _ ? Did he have an  _ affair  _ with my  _ wife _ too? _

Furious, Anakin left.

He needed to go somewhere he could  _ think. _

 

* * *  
  


Obi-Wan still hadn't revived when Anakin overrode the key code and stepped into the room over the corpse.

Qui-Gon watched, anguished, as Anakin tilted the head with the toe of a boot to peer into vacant eyes, then meandered deeper into the room.

_ Obi-Wan doesn't want to come back,  _ Qui-Gon realized.

He wanted it to be over.

_ Oh, my Padawan. _

Anakin lifted the riverstone from the small table by Obi-Wan's bed, and held it in his metal palm.

Using both the durasteel and the Force, Anakin focused his fury into it and cracked the stone, crunching it into pieces and dropping them in front of Obi-Wan's face to find when he resurrected.

Anakin sent one last kick into the dead form's gut, then walked out.

 

* * *

 

Well, that explained why no one had come to arrest him.

Obi-Wan had  _ acquiesced  _ to die. Hadn't put up any sort of fight at all.

_ Just proving his guilt. _

He'd needed to  _ take  _ something from Obi-Wan, so the other man could understand a  _ fraction  _ of Anakin's own loss.

All he could find to wreck, though, had been that damn rock.

Frustrating.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan blinked, and as life returned, so did horror.

“How much more?” he whimpered, but the Force was silent in reply.

He wanted to be done.

Something lay before his eyes. He focused on it, reaching out only to find—

A keen escaped him as he realized what it was.

His fingers scrabbled to gather together the shattered pieces, but the last trace whispers of Qui-Gon had been crushed from them, were  _ gone—  _ the last thing that truly  _ felt  _ of him, that retained his Force signature  _ destroyed—  _

All that was left was the deafening presence of Anakin's hate, all through the fragments.

Obi-Wan's wail fell on no ears but his own as he sat up and gripped the pieces so tight in his hand that the shards cut his palm.

_ Please, come back— _

But the last of Qui-Gon Jinn was gone.

Forever.

 

* * *

 

“Can you find a way to kill a phoenix?”

Mother Talzin walked around Obi-Wan, gaze meeting Qui-Gon's with a small, amused smile before returning to Obi-Wan's jaw. “You seek death?” she asked, voice echoing.

_ She can see me. _

“I want to know if you can kill a phoenix. That is all,” Obi-Wan replied. “Am I wasting my time here?”

“Ah.” Talzin sat at the head of the table, still watching him with sharp eyes. “You are tired of the pain. I sense weariness in you, immortal one. A great sadness and guilt. You hate what you are.”

Obi-Wan planted his hands on the table and leaned forward, something that made Qui-Gon sick glittering in his eye. “Can you, or can you  _ not _ ?” he murmured, voice polite, but with no patience to play to her curiosity.

“Perhaps. But do you not care to keep your species from extinction? There are not many of you.”

Obi-Wan's lip curled. “So kind of you to be concerned. I'll leave if you have nothing else to offer.”

“I did not say I had  _ nothing.  _ It is not what you desire, but it does offer temporary peace.”

“Tell me.”

 

* * *

 

_**Present** _

_**What Now Is...** _

 

Anakin awoke with a start, sweat-clammy and disturbed.

He'd had troubling dreams, ones he couldn't quite remember, but he felt  _ toxic  _ inside.

Obi-Wan seemed to think that second, vile bond had been poisoning Anakin for a while now.

He turned his head, saw Ahsoka curled up on a mattress on the floor.

The mattress was new, but didn't really surprise Anakin.

He lay back against the pillows and wondered what could be done. To stop the drain from the phoenix, to protect Obi-Wan, to save himself from that  _ thing  _ inside him.

 

* * *

 

“Obi-Wan.” Mace placed a gentle hand on the sleeping man's shoulder. Obi-Wan had passed out in a chair in the archives, his research spread all over the table before him.

If it had been up to Mace, he would have carried the near-unconscious creature to a bed and just left him there to sleep off the exhaustion.

But fate did not wait for sleep.

It took a couple tries to wake him, and when Obi-Wan raised confused, disoriented eyes to Mace's face, Mace felt his own sad smile in return. “I'm assuming you didn't find anything.”

“I've been through all of it that Madame Nu did not have familiar knowledge of. Nothing.”  
Mace gave a nod. “We have no answers. How well do you remember your Philosophies and Religions of the Force classes?”

“As well as can be expected, considering they were twenty years ago,” Obi-Wan mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with his palm.

Mace shook his head, quelling a fond smile. “You seemed pretty sleep deprived, so I made a list instead of relying on your memory.” He set the flimsi on the table before Obi-Wan.

The other man picked it up, and he raised tired eyes to Mace again. “Any ideas where I start?”

“I would suggest the Voss Mystics. They're the foremost in the field of soul healing. Just remember their code.”

“'Everything costs.'” Obi-Wan gave a nod. “So I better be prepared to give them something in return. They appreciate humor, only trust individuals who clearly have it. And the usual: respect the planet Voss. Anything I'm missing?”

Mace huffed a chuckle. “No, just go in there and charm their asses off. See if they can help you and Skywalker.”

“And if they  _ can't _ ?”

Mace gestured to the list. “Then keep going until you find someone who can.”

“And...” Obi-Wan's voice dropped to a despairing whisper, “if none of them can?”

_ It is possible.  _ “Then I break into the list that only the Headmaster of the Order is allowed to see. The list that contains the faiths thought extinct, who requested to be concealed as extinct for their protection.”

“Let us hope it doesn't come to that. They wanted to hide for a reason; bringing a Sith to their doorstep certainly wouldn't be defending the defenseless. Alright.”

Mace gave him a nod and turned to go.

“And... Mace?”

Windu paused but didn't look around. There was a raw vulnerability in Obi-Wan's voice now, and the Korun wished to offer him privacy.

“Thank you.”  
“Of course, Obi-Wan.”

 

* * *

 

Anakin found it uncomfortable to be bundled into a shuttle bunk, tucked in before Obi-Wan returned to the cockpit. He didn't like feeling anything less than independent, but he did, somewhere deep, savor Obi-Wan's quiet care.

The man might not scream, “I love you!” from the rooftops, it just wasn't  _ him,  _ but he spoke with his actions.

Anakin found it even  _ more  _ uncomfortable to walk down the ramp and into a Voss temple, only to be directed to lie on a  _ fripping altar. _

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka didn't look concerned, though.

Anakin had always felt very strongly about superstitious people, and he didn't particularly feel comfortable with approaching other faiths for help.

The other Jedi didn't seem to think it at all strange, but...

On Tatooine, faiths didn't _... band together  _ in times of need.

“I am Priestess of this temple,” one of the blue and gold skinned beings announced, her voice soft and eyes a strange reflective glittering tone that made it difficult to tell where their gaze was focused.

That too made Anakin uncomfortable. He liked to know what someone was watching.

“You wish for me to search his mind to see if I can heal it.”

“Yes, Priestess,” Obi-Wan replied, tone respectful. “And I am prepared to offer something in return.”

A small smile touched the woman's lips. “Everything costs. It is the Voss way. You, child of fire, have something I would desire in return. Your blood is rare.”

Anakin stiffened. If they wanted to  _ bleed  _ Obi-Wan—

“It is in your power to grant me a child.”  
_ Worse. So much worse. _

Ahsoka's shoulders set and her fingers twitched, as if itching to rest on one of her sabers.

Obi-Wan looked a bit rattled. “I hold children to be manifestations of the Force; I would be betraying my ethical self were I to trade a child for any reason.”

“A child of yours for a child of yours.” The Priestess looked up from Anakin to meet Obi-Wan's gaze.

Anakin opened his mouth to barter, to start haggling her price lower. He never got the chance. To Anakin's shock, Obi-Wan smirked and said, “I had no idea you placed so little value on your ships.”

“ _ Hey _ !” Anakin yelped.

“After glimpsing this one's mind, you think the universe can endure another child of mine?”

Ahsoka looked impressed. Strike that, near-worship aimed for Obi-Wan.

_ Why? _

The Priestess smiled, a full smile this time, revealing teeth. “Your humor is welcome. So tell me this, with truth: has the Jedi Order changed so much that they would fear to place a child with the Voss?”

“It is the path to arrival, not the destination, that sits uneasy with me.”

The woman paused for a moment, a thoughtful expression taking her face.

Anakin went to speak again, but Ahsoka sent him such a  _ baleful  _ look that his mouth snapped shut in surprise.

“You have shown respect of Voss and her faithful. Receive this gift in return: for a moment, I will think as a Jedi. Ah— yes. Your creed is to help those suffering, whether they give anything in return or not. See into my soul, Jedi Master, and see if this does not meet your conscience's requirements.”

Obi-Wan jolted, his eyes going glassy, his head tipping forward.

Ahsoka tensed again, but held her ground.

Anakin wasn't about to let this sort of aggression go unchallenged, however. “Hey! What are you doing to him?”

He received no response.

“ _ Lady _ !” he snapped, sitting upright. “What are you  _ doing _ ?”  
He wasn't sure what he would have done had she continued to ignore him, but escalation was  _ definitely  _ on his mind when Obi-Wan was released and let out a muffled grunt.

Anakin sprang to his side and gripped his shoulder. “You okay? What did she do to you?”

“She showed me something.” There was a single tear hung on Obi-Wan's lashes.

Anakin's discomfort level skyrocketed as the priestess lay down on the altar and Obi-Wan stepped to her side. “What are you doing? What about not selling children?”  
“She suffers, Anakin. And it is in my power to ease that suffering and possibly help you as well.” The soft smile Obi-Wan sent him failed to set Anakin at ease.

“But—”

Ahsoka's hand slipped into his and squeezed tight.

Obi-Wan held his hand over the priestess' stomach, and for a moment he seemed at a loss. His eyes closed, and his expression relaxed while his head cocked to the side.

Anakin  _ knew  _ that look. Obi-Wan was listening for the whispered guidance of the Force.

_ Wait. He doesn't know how to give her a baby, does he? _

Anakin felt his own face flush crimson.  _ Oh, Force. _

Had Temple sex education been that bad back in Obi-Wan's day? It had been roughly a hundred years ago, so  _ quite possibly— _

Obi-Wan's hand seemed shrouded with a strange golden light.

A tendril of it twined down to reach the priestess' stomach.

_ What in hell's name—? _

And then the glow around Obi-Wan's hand was  _ gone,  _ apparently had gone  _ in,  _ through clothing and skin and muscle and that couldn't  _ actually be it,  _ could it?

Ahsoka watched, her awe just a  _ little  _ loud in the Force.

_ Oh, my Force. Ahsoka and I just watched my dad make a baby. _

Anakin needed to die. Right now.

Ahsoka sent him a  _ grow up  _ glance, stopping just  _ barely  _ shy of elbowing him in the ribs.

Obi-Wan looked just a little dazed, and what Anakin could sense from him was... wonder. A little disbelief, but so much  _ wonder. _

He offered his hand to the priestess and helped her sit up.

“You have upheld your end of the transaction,” she said, voice just a little overcome. If Anakin didn't know better, he might have thought her on the verge of tears. “I will see what I can do for your son.”

Obi-Wan turned to Anakin, giving him a nod.

_ His son? _ These people were  _ weird.  _ He would be glad to get home.

The instant Anakin lay down on the altar again, the priestess placed her hands on his head.

_ Personal space, please. _

A cry escaped the woman, startling Anakin. “I see anguish,” she choked. “ _ Pain.  _ Blue fire, from the mouths of those trusted— I see the Force's children  _ falling, falling— _ ”

“Wait,” Anakin protested. “The Jedi? Or like, all the cults?”

“All,” she confirmed. “A hunger that is not satisfied. A fear and a hatred— the Force itself cries against it— I  _ cannot _ ! It is too much!”

Anakin watched as Obi-Wan and Ahsoka stepped forward and knelt before the altar.  _ What are they doing? _

It alarmed him when he saw them catch hands, both looking braced.

“We offer our strength,” Ahsoka spoke up.

The priestess didn't even spare them a glance, simply tipping her head back and accepting their offer.

Anakin could almost  _ see  _ the strength, the life she drew from them to bolster her own, to try to pass the barrier of what Anakin, Child of Prophecy  _ was  _ in order to reach his wound.

It all looked so clear in this moment, so terrible and bitter.

And... worst of all...

He could see Obi-Wan's faith in  _ Anakin himself. _ So strong, so vibrant—

The priestess used it to clear away the visions that threatened to destroy her concentration, wielding the non-physical entity of Obi-Wan's belief into a shelter and light to guide her deeper.

Both Jedi kneeling and submitting to the priestess' skill looked pale, and Anakin wanted to tell them to  _ stop,  _ but he couldn't make his mouth move.

He could  _ feel  _ her inside his mind, but he didn't know what she was seeing or doing. It frightened him, and he almost wanted to throw her out. He  _ could,  _ he had that strength, even with her natural power and siphoning from Obi-Wan and Ahsoka to bolster her efforts.

But...

_ I have to get rid of the Sith's bond. I  _ have to.

If letting this woman take a crack at destroying it was what it took to protect Obi-Wan...

_ So be it. _

So he grit his teeth... and endured.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

It didn't work.

Anakin found himself blasted off the altar, tumbling across the floor twenty meters away, the altar broken in half, and the Force clanging like a condemning sentence.

He couldn't quite breathe yet, the blast having knocked the air clean from his lungs.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka scrambled to their feet, eyes wide.

“He has acquiesced to the darkness,” the priestess spoke, voice calm— too calm for Anakin's taste. “In a moment where he was free from this influence, while it was still dormant before it blossomed, he sold himself to the darkness' will. Only light can dispel the night, and he has not enough light in him to do so. And light from without will only kill him.”

Anakin's heart thundered in his throat. “You going to break the deal? The deal was he give you a baby and you  _ fix me! _ ” He tried to storm to his feet, but his legs felt like jelly and oozed him back onto the floor.

“I did what I could for him. He is Force-born, and his darkness is far too strong for me to free him. He opened a door in his mind, and it is not closed. It is  _ that door,  _ which allowed this foul bond to be fed, to  _ become  _ what it never had been before.”

Obi-Wan bowed his head, and Anakin could sense only his shields, nothing of what he felt. “Thank you for trying. Do you have any suggestions where we should go?”  
“There is a woman who specializes in mind doors. Opening them, allowing in frightening things. I do not know if she knows how to close them, but she must, or she would have succumbed to the force of the other side long before now. Mother Talzin, of the Nightsisters. But hear me, Force-born.” She turned to Anakin, and chills ran down his back. “You were not controlled, that night in a desert beneath the moons.  _ That is you. _ And  _ that  _ wants to keep you enchained, because it feeds your fury. I do not see hope for you.”

 

* * *

 

The three returned to the Order shuttle in gloom.

“Ahsoka, set course for Dathomir,” Obi-Wan directed before sagging to sit on the floor with his back to the solitary bunk.

Without a word she obeyed.

Anakin hesitated, shifting from foot to foot. “We're actually going to... go to a  _ darksider _ ?”  
“It's not a rivalry, Anakin.”

“But they're...  _ evil. _ ”

“No. The Nightsisters and several of the other dark faiths are  _ not  _ evil. They worship self above all; we simply value others as much as we value ourselves.” 

“But they  _ do things. _ ”

“When self is most important, sometimes it leads to harming others. Force knows I unintentionally harm others when my own head gets too big.”  
“The Sith are  _ trying  _ to hurt others, though.”

“The Sith have taken their creed and turned it into justification for mass murder instead of self-improvement. There may come a day when a Sith can live in harmony with the rest of us without that consuming hunger, the need to wipe the rest of us out.”

“So we're going to Mother Talzin for help.”

“Yes. And we will treat her with the respect her position as spiritual leader of her community deserves.”

“And if she tries to harm  _ us _ ?”

“Then we defend ourselves. But the Nightsisters do not aggress against us. Their loyalty lies with their planet, with the way the Force moves through  _ it.  _ They have no interest in conquering civilizations, and we therefore have no quarrel with them.”

Ahsoka appeared in the doorway, now that the ship had jumped to hyperspace. “Didn't you take your Phil and Rel classes, Master? I have five years of them to get through, I'm on the third.”

“I... might have failed those classes. And the make-up lessons. And... I just don't see why I need to keep all these different cults separate. They treat the Force like a religion, when it's just a scientifically explainable energy field. I just didn't want to waste my time with any of it.”

Obi-Wan hung his head and ground his palm into his forehead, as if it ached. “He spent countless hours in detention.”

_ And got held back. Twice. _

Eventually Tru had mentioned in exasperation that Anakin didn't have to  _ believe  _ it, so long as he  _ memorized the answers they wanted  _ and just  _ gave  _ them on the tests. Anakin hated writing anything he didn't actually  _ think,  _ but on that final test, he'd sucked it up and  _ done  _ it. Didn't scribble commentary in the margins, answered all of the questions with their ridiculous, inclusive answers, and when it said  _ Are all Force traditions equally deserving of respect? True or false?  _ He circled  _ true  _ even as he rolled his eyes and scoffed.

He'd gotten...  _ some  _ points for it. On all the questions trying to gauge his knowledge of  _ what  _ each of the different woowoos believed, he made total guesses, and no, the grade wouldn't have passed, but it had been his final year of school, and his mechanics and combat grades were through the roof. He'd been allowed out of the classrooms for good, though he'd seen his PhilRel teacher closeted with Obi-Wan for over an hour, and when Obi-Wan left, he'd looked worried as frip.

“You're naive if you think Sith will ever be decent beings,” Anakin grumbled, turning to enter the cockpit.

Ahsoka didn't move out of the way. “But Skyguy, their creed isn't bad in and of itself. It's not what  _ we  _ believe, but it doesn't  _ necessarily  _ mean genocide. 'Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength, through strength I gain power, through power I gain victory, through victory, our chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.' A Sith is focused on improvement of self instead of improvement of the whole, but that creed could easily guide them through self-improvement instead of others-harming. Perhaps their love of self could fuel the desire to be the best version of themselves they could be. Their victories could be personal ones, instead of the battlefield— and are not our greatest, most constricting chains those of our own making deep within our souls? A Sith could give their life to breaking their chains without ever murdering another being. And if they did... they would be welcome in the galactic community. Didn't you  _ write  _ that essay, though? Explaining how the Sith Code could be used in a non-harmful way?” She frowned. “ _ Multiple times,  _ if you were held back?”

Obi-Wan made no noise, but Anakin imagined him groaning, somewhere behind those shields. “Oh, I  _ did  _ write it. Three times. I explained how if they just took their mantras and used them to think they should suicide, they would do a lot of benefit, no harm, and would save the universe from their atrocities. Or did you skip  _ history class,  _ Snips, and notice the Sith have  _ never  _ been decent beings?  _ Ever _ ?”

“There've been a lot of very bloodthirsty individuals who have claimed the Sith Code, yes, but there is the  _ possibility  _ of something better.”

“Sure. When it rains on Tatooine.”

Ahsoka bit her lip and looked down, stepping out of his way. “You know, Master,” she murmured as he passed by, “it  _ used  _ to rain on Tatooine, long ago.”

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan feared.

The Voss Mystic's words had sickened him, sapped so much of his hope. And Anakin's aggressive, bullheaded determination to try to keep himself out of the hands of a  _ witch Force forbid _ ....

They were familiar flags for Obi-Wan. They signaled that Anakin felt just as afraid as Obi-Wan.

Anakin had always hated uncertainty. And he had long craved  _ an enemy. _ If the Sith hadn't returned, and in such a violent way, Obi-Wan wasn't sure what or who Anakin would have labeled The Evil of the universe... but something would have.

Anakin didn't like the concept of his greatest enemy being himself, but it was an idea that many, many Force traditions held. He wanted to kill a living foe, not seek out personal growth.

_ What happened? _

It had to have been before his knighting. Something he never mentioned to Obi-Wan.

But Obi-Wan would be a fool not to be able to guess even more closely  _ when. _

He prayed that the priestess' conviction of Anakin's doom was inaccurate. But she had been right about one thing.

When darkness was allowed to feed on blood...

It rarely let go.

It could be seen even in those not Force sensitive. How many humans had there been, who once they'd made one kill, had gotten a taste for it and couldn't stop? Didn't want to?  _ Never  _ wanted to?

The caution  _ forever will it dominate you  _ was said for a reason.

Even if you were the one of a handful of beings throughout all time who succeeded in denying the bloodlust...

The stain of past choices never left. To tear an innocent life from fingers not strong enough to resist— it  _ changed  _ a person. Some choices  _ did  _ last forever.

For the beings so harmed and their loved ones who forever lived with that aching hole where the murdered once lived...

And the person who decided that their own desires were more valuable than the life of another sentient.

_ Has Anakin... my precious, kind, brave Anakin... _

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and felt fragile.

Like a glass sculpture poised to shatter.

Ahsoka approached, sitting beside him.

Obi-Wan could hear Anakin fiddling around in the cockpit, doing  _ Force  _ knew what to the controls and wiring.

“What did she show you?” Ahsoka asked, voice low.

Obi-Wan thought back to it. “She'd been injured in an accident, as a youngling. It stole from her the chance to have a child of her own. She's longed for one for so long.” He could feel it, that aching cry, the struggle to accept the Force's decree, and the rebellion against what had been forced her way.

The hope she felt, when the Force guided to her doorstep the one creature in the universe who could grant her a child to love.

“Will it look like you, or her?”

Obi-Wan sent Ahsoka a small smile. “It will be fully camouflaged, no doubt. It will look Voss, come up on scans as Voss, bleed Voss blood...”

“And if Force-sensitive, will be taught in the Voss tradition.”

“And be very loved.” Obi-Wan thought back to that whole startling experience of  _ giving  _ part of his own life Force to become someone  _ new. _ For a moment, he'd seen the universe without the clouded goggles thirty-seven years of heartache and life had placed on him.

He'd seen the world like a child again. With all the awe, wonder, excitement—

“I don't think it will be evil,” he realized.

Ahsoka leaned her head against Obi-Wan's shoulder. “Of course it won't. It'll be a person with choices to harm or be kind, just like the rest of us.”

Obi-Wan felt his throat close and heart ache again. Oh, how he dreaded the discovery of what Anakin had done.

“Indeed,” he whispered.

 

* * *

 

They were going to crash. Again.

_ It's not my fault,  _ Anakin protested, except, this time... it really kinda was. He'd been distracted and arrogant, and what could go wrong on a simple final approach to Dathomir?

Except... it  _ did. _

And at the last minute, as the crimson ground hurtled up at them, Anakin realized something else.

It was going to be  _ bad. _

 

* * *

 

Blood was spilling out of him.

Obi-Wan clapped his left hand over the tear in his right bicep, not ready to attend to it just yet, needing to  _ find _ —

“Ahsoka?” he tried to yell, but his voice came out a whisper as he choked on smoke. Fire blazed, sheered metal lay stabbed deep into the ground, the ship torn apart and scattered from its impact.

He stumbled in the direction the cockpit should have been in, but it was so far, took so many steps—

He reeled, sank to one knee.

“Master Obi-Wan!”

Ahsoka materialized at his side, helping to haul him to his feet, using the uninjured arm. “Where is Anakin?”

“H-here,” rasped a weak voice.

_ Oh— Force— no— _

Obi-Wan staggered forward, outpacing even Ahsoka as he lunged for the voice.

Consciousness flickered out, then in again, Obi-Wan still on his feet, and then he found him.

And found himself thoroughly kissed, for the second time in his life, by Despair.

 

* * *

 

Anakin's vision might be blurry, but he could read the death of hope in Obi-Wan's face. Anakin managed a wavering smile, but as Ahsoka appeared as well, it vanished.

“S-saw the village to the east,” Anakin spoke up, since neither of the others seemed capable of words just yet. “Maybe you can get help there.”

_ I'm sorry, Padmé. I won't... I won't be coming home. _

The shock kept Anakin from fully _feeling_ it, allowing it to be present but slightly fuzzy, as if the wounds were wrapped in cotton and chilled to the point of numbness. It clearly hurt, he just didn't dare move or... _look..._ or he _would_ feel it. It would come rushing in, and he would die weeping, snot dribbling from his nose and—

“Anakin? Anakin, stay awake, stay with me, please!”

That... that was Obi-Wan, in tears, a hand hesitantly touching Anakin's cheek before yanking back as Anakin's body spasmed with pain. Oh, Force, he felt  _that_ —

“ _I'm_ the one who can come back. Don't you  _dare,_ Anakin, don't—  _please—_ ”

Anakin squinted, realized Obi-Wan had a massive injury himself, and was bleeding all over them both.

Oh. Maybe only bleeding over Obi-Wan. Anakin was beginning to suspect the blood all over his own body was... his own.

“Snips— tourniquet—”

But  _Ahsoka_ had a terrible head-gash, and Anakin's eyes widened in terror. “Obi-Wan,” he urged. “ _Ahsoka_ !”

Obi-Wan's head turned, and Anakin felt his former master's heart shatter.

“Get her help,” Anakin mumbled.

Ahsoka crouched beside him. “You're more in need. We'll—”

“Triage,” Anakin whispered, eyes finding Obi-Wan's.

Obi-Wan seemed to break, the Force lighting up with the cruelty of his agony. He crouched beside Anakin, fingers touching Anakin's cheek one more time.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Anakin wanted to nod, to say  _you too,_ but he couldn't move enough for either. He was opening his eyes as wide as he could, but he could only see the lower half of— maybe his eyes weren't opening all the way—

_I guess the bright side is, I don't have to let some witch fish around in my brain._

And...

He couldn't be used against Obi-Wan anymore either. Sort of a nice bonus.

His thoughts grew ever more sluggish, taking forever to string together and complete.

Distantly, he realized they were gone, his master and his apprentice. Obi-Wan was undoubtedly trying to keep her alive, get her away from the ship before it exploded entirely, before that head wound—

Before....

Oh.... he could feel it closing in around him, now. Obi-Wan had woven a sleep suggestion over him before he left— it was just taking time for Anakin's brain to respond. And... it would require Anakin to stop fighting unconsciousness, to accept it, if it was to take effect before Anakin passed.

He smiled, faintly.

One last gift.

As the pain roared in to ravage Anakin's body, he accepted the gift.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan collapsed to his knees, a keen welling out of his throat.

Ahsoka fell beside him, unable to see straight, her head hurting as if someone had severed her montral— oh, Force,  _had_ they?—

Anakin had just died.

She felt the awful punch to her soul that his loss shattered through the Force, and Obi-Wan was weeping, sobbing, cursing the universe in shattered whimpers— because  _he_ was the one who could come back, and yet  _he_ survived Maul and  _he_ survived this, and—

_He hasn't survived yet._

Ahsoka wrestled his belt off, binding it and his obi around his arm in a tourniquet.  _I'm going to pass out soon._

If Obi-Wan was on his way to regenerating...

Well...

None of them would make it out.

Which... if they had to go...

_At least we're all together._

The world swam, pain shattering through her head like a hammer against glass—

And Ahsoka knew no more.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan gathered Ahsoka in his arms, his teeth piercing his lip as he pushed through the agony in his right arm.

He'd already lost Anakin today.

He couldn't lose Ahsoka too.

So he turned his face to the east, and he walked.

Every step faltering, his eyelids fluttering to try to clear his vision when it warped, his feet stumbling over the rough ground—

Behind him, the ship engines exploded. It sent a shockwave against his back that knocked him flat, landing painfully atop Ahsoka's unconscious form.

Collecting her and standing up again wrenched a cry from him that quieted the native birds' songs.

He kept seeing red ray shields, smelling burning flesh as Maul's saber impaled the wrong  _one,_ the  _mortal_ one _—_ and the ship debris, cutting clean through Anakin, in so many  _places—_

The way Anakin had accepted Obi-Wan's offer of oblivion with gratitude—

And that final knell through the Force.

A sob escaped Obi-Wan as he kept forward.

Apparently, the universe _could_ only endure one child of Kenobi at a time. Had it not exacted Anakin as payment for the Voss baby?

Obi-Wan could only hope it wouldn't take Ahsoka too.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darling Readers,
> 
> The next chapter, and the beginning of the following one are already written; so keep in mind as you yell at me, that the yelling will be entirely futile. If it makes you feel better, though, go ahead and yell and plead. Your pleading is adorable. 
> 
> Love,   
> Fair Warning


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be witches petting Obi-Wan's skin & giving him a bath. He's not thrilled. Other than Mother Talzin digging around in his brain, I don't think there's anything else requiring special note.

 

Death wasn't quite what Anakin had expected.

He wasn't unconscious anymore, for one thing. That was unexpected. When he embraced Obi-Wan's sleep suggestion, he'd expected that to be it.

No more Anakin Skywalker, certainly no more Anakin Skywalker _thoughts._

Also, his corpse was... well, looking at it— since, oh, he could  _see_ the fripping thing— was making him feel ill. Really ill.  _Can't believe I managed to say some stuff. Holy Sith._

And no wonder his family hadn't been in denial. Ahsoka might have less experience, so far, but...

The immanent death due to that wounding was horrifically clear.

_Yeah. Not going to look anymore._

Anakin took in the surroundings, the giant crimson trees with... bulbous pods hanging down. Those looked like they might be filled with blood, or some other awful liquid.

Some had clearly been opened and stitched closed, and with the sun behind one of them—

_Holy frip! There's a body in there!_

So... apparently the Nightsisters didn't  _bury_ their dead. They hung them up.

_Okay._ Anakin tried to just accept it, then realized Obi-Wan wasn't here to be disappointed if Anakin couldn't quite be as accepting of another culture as the Jedi would prefer him to be.

_Obi-Wan._

Anakin couldn't feel him, couldn't move, and he really wanted to make sure Snips was safe—

A soft glow, like flames, curled in the corpse's wounds. Anakin's attention snapped down to it again, and he realized in shock that the thing was knitting itself back together.

With all the ship pieces  _still inside._

_What?_ Anakin wailed. Oh, this was gonna  _hurt—_

And it really did.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan had managed to make it far enough to collapse at the feet of the Nightsisters' matron, Mother Talzin. None of the warrior-priestesses had killed him yet, but whether they would help save Ahsoka or not...

Unknown.

“Mother,” Obi-Wan wheezed, on his knees, and not quite able to lift his head, “we are Jedi who were on our way to request your wisdom and help. Our ship crashed. Please... help my companion, Mother.”

Cold fingers brushed over his cheek, then curled beneath his chin, tilting his face up.

“You are the man who slew my son.”

Obi-Wan's vision doubled, making it difficult to focus on the witch's face. “I have never harmed a Nightbrother.”

The world might be fast slipping from his grasp, but he _knew_ that much.

“He was no longer one of us; the Sith stole him from me.”

Oh...

“Maul,” Obi-Wan rasped, horror striking him. “He wasn't Iridonian—?”

“No, though Sidious has made every effort to erase his soul.” Furious, wounded eyes flashed. Eyes that saw revenge as entirely acceptable.

Obi-Wan froze in alarm.  _Ahsoka._

“Today I lost my son to your planet. Search my soul, you will recognize the wound. Please, accept that as payment; and help this child who had no part in Darth Maul's death.”

The woman rumbled something that sounded like amusement. “Oh, I see your loss, phoenix. And I know you killed my son in self-defense. It is why I did not hunt you long before now and boil your blood with my spells.”

Obi-Wan struggled to cling to consciousness. He couldn't pass out until he knew Ahsoka would receive the medical—

“There is something else I will require of you before you leave; but we will tend to your second padawan.”

Obi-Wan managed a faint, “Thank you,” before the blood loss claimed his awareness.

 

* * *

 

The third time Anakin awoke to see his corpse on the ground, he decided that none of this was actually taking _place,_ and he was in hell.

Probably for the Tuskens.

That hypothesis lasted all of five seconds before he saw Qui-Gon Jinn.

_So much for that theory. Guess I'm as..._

But he wasn't ready, just yet, to face such a truth. He knew he would eventually, just... not yet. Not while he kept returning to a body that was thoroughly impaled only to choke up his own blood again.

“Ani.”

“Master Jinn.”

Anakin wasn't sure what to say, after all these years. “Does Obi-Wan see you, every time he dies, then?”  
“No.” Qui-Gon looked grieved. “This planet has an unusual relationship with both the Force and with Death. He is currently unconscious, in the care of the Nightsisters. I cannot reach him, and he will not be able to come back to you for some time.”

Anakin shuddered with dread. “I wish I could be brave about it, but the bravado died a couple rounds ago. It...  _hurts so much,_ Master.”

“I know, Anakin. I am sorry.”

“Tell me Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are going to make it.”

Qui-Gon's smile looked grim. “Your padawan will require a lengthy recovery, but is no longer in danger of death from the wound. Obi-Wan... has more to suffer here. Much more.”

“So  _help_ him, maybe?”  
“I cannot. Mother Talzin can see me; and she has the power to counter everything I attempt. She will exact a price from Obi-Wan, and I cannot stop her.”

“What price?” Anakin yelped. “And  _for_ what? For asking for  _help_ ?”

“For what happened to Maul... and for being a beautiful male. Dathomir is a disastrous place for such a man to be injured.”

“Well, isn't that nice,” Anakin grumbled. “We'll be leaving a whole collection of Kenobis behind on this hopeless quest.”

“Oh, the Mother does not wish for a _phoenix_ child. She has no desire to convince Sidious to return to steal another of her children.”

Anakin felt worried. And sick. His body was nearly ready for another round. “Then what  _does_ she want from him?”  
“Humiliation. Pain. Preferably heartbreak. She has received the latter without having to actually take steps against the Order, so she will settle for demanding the former two from him.”

Anakin felt sheepish and annoyed. “Yeah. I messed up, should have been paying more attention, but I think I have  _paid_ for it!”

“Oh, Ani.”

“ _What_ ?”

But he was dragged back to life again, and he only had the chance to catch a glimpse of the compassion in Qui-Gon's face.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan came to, only to find himself naked and bound on an altar.

He sighed.

He then forced himself to twist around enough to make sure Ahsoka wasn't in the room, because he had a  _very_ bad feeling about what exactly it was that Mother Talzin had decreed would be his fate.

_Maul's mother._

He had _not_ seen that coming.

But it made a form of sense. Sidious preyed on fellow children of the Force, whether of light or dark paths....

_And he must be somehow protected, if Mother Talzin hasn't murdered him for what he did to her son yet._

First thing, once she finally released him, would be to attempt to discover just  _what_ protection the Sith Master had, and devise a plan to deprive him of it.

Then... step back and let the Nightsisters have their way—

“You have rather brave thoughts, for a man naked and lost,” purred a voice. “Though, why am I not particularly surprised?”  
_Really?_ Obi-Wan's mind protested. “Ventress.” He kept his voice level and hid his distress. “Have you come by this telepathy recently, or does the Mother enjoy bestowing the gift of voyeur? Must say, we rather miss you on the battlefield these days. It's lonely without you.”

“How appropriately sweet of you. As for knowing your  _thoughts_ ? The Mother is powerful, Kenobi. Can't say I disagree with your  _goals,_ though I am far more interested in destroying Dooku than Sidious. But if you still think you want to attempt this plan, after the Mother has had her revenge, then I will assist you. As the child of Dathomir who escaped the Sith, they listen to me for security measures. If I request they help you take out Sidious, they will.”

Obi-Wan kept his breathing even, and watched as Ventress approached, her gaze raking over him. “Perhaps with Sidious no longer available to shield him, Dooku will be accessible to your magicks,” Obi-Wan suggested. “Is Ahsoka alright?”

Ventress made an unimpressed face and shrugged.

“ _Ventress,_ ” Obi-Wan growled.

“Yes, yes. I know you're very fond of the little thing. She's out of danger. Still unconscious. Healing.”

Obi-Wan's tension drained out of him. “Thank you.”

“Wasn't me. But my, that sounds rather pleasing on your lips.”

“What do you want, Ventress?”  
“To gloat over your naked corpse, of course.”

Obi-Wan stifled an urge to roll his eyes. “So you  _are_ here to kill me. Once you're done, will the Mother kill me  _again_ ?”

“No, her plans are quite a bit more cruel. But for me? Hate is a very straightforward thing.”

A flash of crimson, a searing pain through his heart—

A sharp yell escaped him, he tried to suck air into his lungs—

And he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan gasped as he returned, eyes already open.

“Had your fill?” Obi-Wan choked out, still reeling from the agony that had killed him.

Ventress chuckled, ran her fingers through his hair. “Getting close. See you on the other side, Kenobi. If your mind survives it.” She turned and strode for the door, making sure to sway her ass more than  _strictly_ necessary.

If he hadn't been  _bound to a fripping altar,_ he might have found it more amusing.

Even  _less_ amusing, the voice whispering in his mind. He jolted against his bonds, too damaged by Zigoola to  _ever_ respond  _well_ to a voice in his head.

_“Are you prepared to face the cost of what you've done to my son?”_

“If I say no, will it make a difference?” he groused.

_“None whatsoever. First, we shall see if your loss truly is worth being accepted as partial payment. And then, since you value empathy so much, you will experience what my son did— you will feel it all.”_

Oh, no, no—

The pain of being cut in half, fine. Maybe he even deserved it.

But Anakin—

He could feel long, cold fingers probing the wound in his heart, fishing in his memories—

 

* * *

 

Ventress watched, feeling just a little vindicated as Mother Talzin made Kenobi live in the loss of his Anakin.

Ventress had experienced loss every step of her own miserable life, and for it to be happening to  _someone else_ this time seemed fair. Though... Kenobi's pitiful cries for “ _Anakin!_ ” were... not very comfortable to listen to. Not when his dignity had been stripped away, leaving him sobbing and heartbroken, unable to pull away from the Mother's insistence that he suffer.

When Mother Talzin felt satisfied with that, and started in with Maul's suffering, it had been rather normal for Ventress. She was very accustomed to Obi-Wan Kenobi enduring unspeakable pain. The dismemberment and the fall? Felt pointless.

The impact at the base of the shaft, shattering nearly every bone Maul had still possessed—

The gurgle that escaped Kenobi upon feeling  _that_ was a bit intriguing.

Ventress had never gone in for breaking his bones. She'd seen them broken in combat, and he just automatically shifted into his endurance mode, glassy-eyed, silent, as if it were a well-known companion from childhood.

None of these things bothered Ventress.

And then Mother Talzin dug deep into Kenobi's brain to feed in Maul's desperation, his terror, the agony of trying to survive on that garbage world he'd ended up stranded on, and the slow descent of his mind into utter madness. Compressed, from years into moments.

And that...

That...

Well, part way through that, Kenobi came to realize why he'd been bound to an altar in an empty chamber.

If he'd been able to slay himself...

He would have.

Even if he hadn't been phoenix.

And those watching knew it too.

Ventress turned away, feeling just a bit unsettled. She'd done everything she could think of, back when she had him in her castle for two months, to bring him to  _this point._

Weeping, shrieking, drooling, mindless, excretory system voiding, snot-covered, broken.

It... didn't feel quite as good as she'd expected it to.

So Ventress left Mother Talzin to her need, while the former Sith headed out for a long walk.

Maybe she'd have a look at Skywalker's corpse. She'd wanted that chance for years, after all.

 

* * *

 

He didn't die.

Obi-Wan lay trembling, feeling utterly shattered.

The Mother had finally taken her fingers out of his brain, but a few tears still worked their way from his eyes. He shut his mouth, shuddered, hating the noises he'd made. He'd always taken pride in how silent he could be through pain.

Hands were all over his body, wielding rags, cleaning him of the mess he'd made. Some of it filth. Some of it blood from where the ropes had bit in too deep as he writhed. Obi-Wan made no effort to dissuade those hands, even if they were uncaring of the conception of privacy.

Still bound, he simply tried to breathe, feeling as if everything within him had been hollowed out and scoured. Anything other than just breathing was too much. He just... couldn't.

The hands cleaned him, they rubbed ointment into his injuries, sewed closed his arm— and shockingly enough, that still hurt, in spite of the unspeakable heights of agony he had endured so recently— and coated his skin with fragrant oils.

While his body was willing to recognize more pain, his adrenal system seemed utterly wiped out. While he had been quite concerned earlier that these women might force him into sex he didn't want, now he simply waited to see what would happen.

This broken, he didn't think he'd be a particularly enjoyable lay, so maybe they would notice that in spite of their petting, his body lay entirely unprovoked.

They washed his hair, and for that last, he did try to pull his head away, but the hands simply followed him and he had not the energy to fight them over it. It ended up scented, clean, combed.

And then the bindings came off, and the Nightsisters left the room, Mother Talzin returning.

Obi-Wan simply lay curled up on the altar, close to a fetal position now.

“My son has been avenged,” the matron announced. “Your debt has been repaid.”

He simply looked at her, not yet able to speak.

“Your robes were burned for this ritual; but you need not leave here bare.” She gestured to a scanty garment laid out for him.

Obi-Wan would have grimaced had he the energy. Might have snarked a  _really?_ As it was, he just wanted to be small, unnoticeable, left on the cold stone.

_“Yes,_ really _,”_ chuckled the voice through his mind, echoing.  _“Should you ever tire of the Order; return to us. You would help us create ferocious daughters.”_

_I am flattered, Mother Talzin._

Again that chuckle, a little less cold this time.

“Now, let me take you to your second padawan. I know you would prefer to be with her when she wakes.”

That was motivation enough to cause him to sit and slip trembling legs over the side of the altar. When he stood, he nearly fell as his legs gave out entirely. Mother Talzin caught him, sliding an arm around his back, her hand trailing his hip.

He did  _not_ appreciate her gaze, or her petting, and when she helped him reach  _the thing,_ he scrambled into it as fast as his shaking fingers would permit.

He wanted off this planet.

Now.

 

* * *

 

A very bizarre scent wafted into Ahsoka's consciousness. It smelled like hunger and desire. Her predator brain had...  _thoughts..._ about that smell.

Next returned some of the Force, through which she identified Master Obi-Wan beside her.

Lastly, her eyelids allowed themselves to open.

Obi-Wan sat in a chair, but he looked as curled in on himself as if he were hiding on the floor in a corner.

In the Force and to her eyes alike, he looked... destroyed. It chilled her.

“You smell funny,” Ahsoka grumbled, and then she noticed his clothes. Very... sex-slave...

Obi-Wan grimaced. “I was bathed.” His voice was a whisper that seemed to take effort.

“Are you okay?” she asked, worried now, even if her head still pounded, and the Force was just a little bit difficult to grasp.

He stepped to her side and bent over her, full of concern. Again, his voice was a hoarse rasp. “No lasting harm.” Though, when he spoke, something about him faltered. He'd thought the words true as he began to speak them, then second-guessed them in the middle.

_Oh. A mind hurt, then._

Which brought back—

_Oh, oh no, Master Anakin..._

Ahsoka's eyes blurred with tears, and a gentle hand gripped her shoulder. She sniffed hard, not ready yet. Just... not ready. “What happened to your voice?”

“Lost.”

Sure enough, he sounded like he'd been cheering at a podrace all day long until his vocal cords just threw in the towel.

_Or... as if he screamed until no sound came out._

Somehow, Ahsoka doubted it was the former.

“What is going to happen to us?” she asked, her own voice a whisper fragile enough to match his.

He seemed at a loss to answer. And then his comm chimed—  _Anakin's_ sound.

Someone was using Anakin's comlink.

A flare of anger surged in Ahsoka's heart.

“Who is this?” Obi-Wan demanded, trying to speak clearly but his throat just wouldn't cooperate.

“Ventress. You need to get out here to the crash site.”

Obi-Wan pulled away from the bed, and Ahsoka could sense his turmoil. He'd reached the  _end_ of himself and of his endurance. He could take no more today.

It was something Ahsoka had never seen in him before, and it was a brutal thing to witness.

“You brutalize me again and again, always assuming I will forgive you because  _that_ is my ethical self. That  _of course_ I will assist you if you're in trouble and you ask.” Oh, it hurt to  _hear_ his damaged voice; it had to burn to force air to form words. “But I find I'm not feeling in an  _aid-giving mood_ just now, for some reason,  _Asajj._ ”

“ _I'm_ not the one in need of your help, hutthole.”

Obi-Wan hissed out a scoff, eyes flashing.

A hoarse cry cut off whatever Ventress had meant to say next. It sounded male.

Obi-Wan went stark white, entire body shuddering, horror in his eyes and recognition. He turned to look at Ahsoka, expression torn with indecision.

“What?” Ahsoka demanded. And then her brain remembered where the sound was familiar from.

“I'll be fine.  _Go_ !” Ahsoka yelled.

Thus released, Obi-Wan Kenobi bolted out the door.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra Content Warnings: Some blood (No spurting, just melodrama). Nearly-severed limb. Brief mention of guts being visible. Temporary drug-induced blindness. Flashback of LabRat!Obi deaths. It's Zan Arbor, so teenager Obi-Wan's going to face torment and death while she tries to find out how Force navigation works. Warning for Very Evil Scientist.
> 
> Also: Obi-Wan's return to reality is beset with bouts of him not being sure he is in reality after all. It's difficult to come back from acute madness. Hell. Maul never really made it out the whole way.

 

Kenobi looked a wreck.

Not because he wore garb like a mate chosen by a Nightsister. No, he seemed to have forgotten all about that. He looked so bewildered and alarmed as he ran to where Ventress stood.

He couldn't seem to look down at Skywalker.

“So,” Ventress announced, since he was clearly missing the point. “He's breathing.”

Obi-Wan's wide eyes snapped down to take in an unconscious, breathing Skywalker. And then the great general was on his knees, the Force seeming to unravel around him as he reached a hand out, snatched it back, and then pressed a fist to his knee. “ _How_ ?”

Blood-crusted eyelashes parted, just a bit. “Master?”

“I'm here,” Obi-Wan babbled. “I'm here, Anakin, just hang on, I'm going to get you out.”  
Anakin grimaced. “Don't have to be gentle.”  
“I think the kid may be right,” Ventress put in.

“We can't pull any of this out of him!” Obi-Wan protested, distraught. “He'd bleed out in a half-second!”

“Kenobi. He already did, and is back again.”

The older Jedi shuddered, then shifted his gaze from the hideous wounds.

His hand began to tremble.

“Hey,” Anakin rasped, blood dribbling from his mouth. “Don't care if it sends me around again, just get this stuff out of me. I don't want it there when I wake up this time. I can't do  _that_ again.”

Obi-Wan looked deathly pale, but he managed a nod and ignited his lightsaber.

“Help me?” he pleaded, looking up at Ventress in desperation.

She huffed. “I called  _you,_ remember? You cut, I'll catch.”

Kenobi sliced through each of the giant ship pieces spearing Skywalker, and Ventress seized them through the Force and shoved them to the side.

And then Kenobi shoved his saber into Ventress' hands, and slid his arms beneath Skywalker's back and thighs.

“This is going to hurt,” Kenobi warned, voice tremulous.

Skywalker managed an awful smile. “You, more than it does me. Do it.”

And then Kenobi lifted.

Skywalker screamed, convulsing, losing blood everywhere as the last of the metal slid free from his body. His left leg was nearly severed, and Ventress could see into his guts.

Grimacing, still a bit in shock from Kenobi just  _handing over_ his saber, Ventress kept her distance as Kenobi sank to the ground, holding Skywalker's spasming body close.

“Please,” Obi-Wan whispered. “Please, please, please—”

Skywalker's feeble thrashing slowed, then stilled, his bloody form clutched to Kenobi's heart as life fled.

“I'm... I'm still on the altar, aren't I?” Obi-Wan rasped, his gaze finding Ventress'.

Her grip on his lightsaber tightened, and she felt shaken.

He looked... absolutely destroyed.

“Mother Talzin is still fripping with my brain.”

Ventress shrugged. “Seems kind of pointless. Why deceive  _me_ as well as you?”

But Kenobi seemed unable to hear her, his head bowing over blood-matted brown curls.

Ventress knew what it felt like to lose your world.

This was it.

Kenobi clung to the corpse, eyes wide and desolate.

Finding herself curious to witness his reaction when Skywalker returned, Ventress waited, Kenobi's saber in her hands, and silent.

 

* * *

 

When Anakin returned this time, it wasn't to the impossible agony of previous. He stirred, realized he was free of the wreckage, was being held—

Hands gripped his face, and wild eyes met his.

“Tell me you're real,” Obi-Wan rasped, his voice near-gone. “ _Is this real?_ ”

Anakin reached up, feeling woozy still, and gripped Obi-Wan's forearm. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It's fripped up.”

The hands left his face, Obi-Wan's face from his vision, and arms clutched him close, so tight it was difficult to breathe and  _ hurt. _

The body he was pressed against shuddered, then shook with wretched tears.

“Mother, Mother, I  _ can't.  _ Please— I'm  _ sorry,  _ I'm sorry for what I did to Maul. I'll find him, I'll rescue him, but  _ please  _ stop—”

_ The hell is going on—? _

Anakin had never witnessed Obi-Wan weep like this, and it scared the kark out of him. “Hey—”

“Leave my boy alone. Please let it be enough. Let me go.”

“At last, it is enough,” purred an echoing voice that had Anakin squirming, trying to see, but Obi-Wan's arms only tightened. “You are not required to end my son's suffering; his brother has found him and will take care of him. As for you, your debt to the Night clans is paid.”

Anakin craned his head just right and caught sight of the owner of the voice.

This had to be Mother Talzin. Holy frip.

The Force twisted weirdly around her, her fingernails were as long as knives, and the fabric of her dress billowed strangely around her feet and tendrils of it floated around her shoulders, though there was no wind.

Suddenly the arms let go of him and Anakin scrambled up onto his feet, glanced back, found Obi-Wan on his knees, staring up at the witch, a terrible expression on his face that chilled Anakin to the core.

Qui-Gon hadn't been kidding when he said Obi-Wan would suffer here. The lines were carved deep in his face. And Anakin's blood... it  _covered_ him, horrifying even the one who'd spilled all of it.

“I will help your son,” Mother Talzin announced. “Consider your tears sufficient payment. Return to the village when you can, Kenobi, and I will see what we can do for your child. Come, Asajj. Let us leave them in peace.”  
“Yes, Mother.”

And  _Ventress_ was there, handing Anakin Obi-Wan's lightsaber. “What are  _you_ doing here?” Anakin hissed.

“I live here,” she returned, tone dry. “You better give him a minute. Twelve years of insanity compressed into a matter of minutes did a number on his brain.”

Anakin accepted the offered saber, and  watched as the two women walked away, feeling his every nerve tingling with alarm.

Anakin turned back to Obi-Wan, found his former master still kneeling, staring at the dirt.

 

* * *

 

** Many Years Prior **

 

Her little lab rat was responding well to the injections— a total, though temporary, blindness— and the ear covers blocked every sound but her voice, when she chose to speak to him.

Jenna Zan Arbor was quite curious about how the Force was used to navigate.

The auburn test subject had a resilience the older Jedi of the pair would never have been able to match.

She tapped her control screen, and tiny pins slid up from the floor, stabbing his heels.

The teenager jolted, then launched away, running down the corridor, away from the pain, leaving small red spots on the floor as he went.

This was a new maze, different from each of the ones before, but this time, she had kept certain areas similar to other tests.

He took the correct turn to find the center of the puzzle, but as he passed around a corner he froze up, whimpering, the reaction visceral.

Jenna smiled. “Clever boy,” she praised. “Yes. Six times ago, those walls formed a dead end. Fire, was it? Had a chance to see your pretty eyes. Get to the center. You know you only have four minutes to find it before the pins fill the entire floor.”

The Jedi choked in a sob, forced himself past those walls, braced for agony—

None came.

He darted forward, running again, then skidded to a halt at a junction containing a little jog.

_ Good. He can sense the shape of the options, remembers that last time, taking the path he wants to take now led to another mistake. _

That dead end had resulted in powder being puffed all over him, one that ate away his body like acid.

The lab rat hesitated, then pushed through.

_ Because he isn't navigating based on memory. _

The Force said that forward led to where he had to go.

He made it this time, crawling up onto the short pedestal that was the objective, and crouched on it, head bowed. 

Next time, she would have the walls configured to have multiple dead ends pressed up against the objective, where for a long time it seemed correct, only to have a wall between him and hope at the last minute.

For now, she was proud of him.

He'd identified agony from prior lives.

It was wonderful data.

The small droid floated over, holding out a ration bar and water pack.

The starving Jedi made short work of both, shuddered as the pins snapped out of the floor on their timer.

_ Couldn't hear or see them. Sensed them. _

Perhaps instead of waiting the normal time it took to reset the room, she could hurry the process a bit.

 

* * *

 

He had it. He had it, he wasn't going to die this time, he—

Obi-Wan turned the last corner, raced for the stand—

Slammed into a wall.

“No,” he choked, searching it for the way through—

There wasn't one—

“Oh, gods,” he gasped, knowing there wasn't time to go all the way back and around, but he had to get out of here before—

He turned to run—

Something impaled him from behind, stabbing through his heart.

He stood there, held up by it, felt the flicks of pain in his heels as time ran out.

Strange, that he could notice that much, much smaller pain, so many pins in his feet,  _ now,  _ as blood soaked his skin, turned his arms red, turned his hands a glistening crimson.

Was Qui-Gon somewhere, screaming his name?

 

* * *

 

** Now **

 

“I just... I just have to find the middle, find the pedestal. I just have to...” 

Obi-Wan was staring at the blood on his hands, eyes narrowed. “She'll let me go if I find it enough times in a row without a mistake. Talzin is like Arbor, I just have to  _ find what she wants.  _ Talzin wants pain. Don't get distracted. I— don't look. Don't look. Don't look at him. She'll do anything— she'll make him a monster, she'll make him like  _ me.  _ It's not real. It's not. He's good. My boy was  _ good.  _ And he's  _ dead. _ ”

Anakin crouched beside him, horrified by how shattered Obi-Wan's Force signature looked. Shields lay like broken wings around his soul, and within there cowered a padawan with russet hair and bleeding feet.

Obi-Wan turned his head away. “Don't look. Don't look at the illusions. She'll just take him away again, just don't fall for it. This time don't fall for it—”

“I'm here,” Anakin whispered, throat closing up. “What did they do to you?”

Maul had certainly been avenged.

Obi-Wan's head turned again, but not  _ to  _ Anakin, just keeping Anakin in the range of peripheral vision.

Anakin peered into the wreck of Obi-Wan's normally well-ordered mind. Everything quivered in shambles, and the memory of the crash, of Anakin's wounding, of feeling him die in the Force on the way to the village— it was so  _ loud,  _ swollen, as if it had been artificially harassed—

_ Oh.  _ Anakin swallowed as he realized Mother Talzin had demanded Obi-Wan live in that place, to endure it again and again, unable to pull away. There were echoes of injuries Obi-Wan had inflicted— intentionally or not— on Maul so long ago, and his control over his perception of reality was nearly entirely out of his own grasp.

Mother Talzin apparently believed Maul had endured years of agony and creeping insanity, and Obi-Wan's mind was reeling from the taste of it.

Anakin scooted closer, placed a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder.

The older Jedi's skin jumped.

“Hey, I'm here,” Anakin murmured, wanting to stretch his own shields around Obi-Wan, but fearing to, not sure if that would truly protect him, or would result in having the last of Obi-Wan's unprotected fragments being spread out on a platter for the Sith who wanted to drain Obi-Wan dry.

After all... that Sith bond was  _ inside  _ Anakin's shields.

Obi-Wan's deepest soul was on display, with how desperately much he loved Anakin, loved Ahsoka, loved the Jedi, missed Qui-Gon, and every experience of his past flicked in and out of view, so many,  _ many  _ times the hatred or simply  _ curiosity  _ of others had led to suffering or death for him, and Anakin knew now, in a way he'd never really  _ understood  _ before—

What it was to  _ die. _

Anakin shivered, his soul recoiling.

It made...

It made everything  _ different.  _ It made things  _ real  _ that hadn't felt the same, before, and it—

“Tell me you didn't endure this for me,” Anakin pleaded, feeling on the verge of shattering himself. He brushed his Force-signature against Obi-Wan's, trying to prove himself  _ real. _

“She— if I— had known _ —  _ the price would not— have been  _ met,  _ it was...  _ belief  _ in the loss—” Pain-flecked eyes turned to Anakin at last. “I— I'm sorry.”

“That I'm a phoenix?” Anakin asked, seeing so much more of the inside of Obi-Wan's brain than anyone had any right to.

“You— hate them so much—”

“Let's go get Ahsoka,” Anakin urged, slipping an arm behind Obi-Wan's back and beginning the process of getting him to his feet. “You have suffered so much more than enough for one day.”

_ For a lifetime. _

“I'm sorry,” Obi-Wan stuttered. “I'm sorry.” The horror and guilt he was carrying was staggering, as if it was somehow  _ his  _ fault Anakin turned out to be the thing he despised. “I'm  _ sorry. _ ”

“I can't deal with that right now,” Anakin interrupted. He had to get to Ahsoka. Had to see if that wretched witch could sever him from the Sith, had to do  _ anything  _ but think about what he'd endured and what it  _ meant. _

 

* * *

 

Her dads came stumbling in, bracing one another up, Obi-Wan glassy-eyed, and Anakin, haunted.

But they were  _ alive,  _ they were both  _ alive,  _ and that's all that mattered to Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan sank to the floor by her bed, back to it, curling himself into a small ball.

“Kneel, child.”

It was Mother Talzin, gliding in and looking at Anakin, and  _ he  _ didn't seem too interested in obedience—

“Do it,” Obi-Wan rasped, looking up. “She has no quarrel with the Order— just with me. She can close mind doors.”

“There is more than one door inside your soul that should never have been opened,” Talzin murmured, her eyes closing, her hand stretching towards Anakin's head.

He leaned away, scowling, and then his eyes widened in shock as his knees folded and he knelt before her.

“One was opened by the Sith— the way he wrenched away my Maul.”

Cold fury flooded the room from her, and Ahsoka shuddered under it.

Master Obi-Wan, unable to protect himself from that burning strike, recoiled backwards, slamming his back against the bed, making it shake.

_ Oh. _

Ahsoka reached for him, trying to imagine her shields as wings, trying to cover him with the pale feathers, their thin, graceful strength—

“Another you opened, Force Chosen, and you found bloodlust beyond. You're keeping it at bay, but it's sunk its poison in you, it's just waiting for a reason, for  _ permission  _ to emerge again, to feed. Already it has claimed the guilty and innocent, the strong and the babes in arms, with no regard to who it devastates. You will feed on your enemies until you have none left, and then you will feed on your friends, unable to stop. You are the parasite you secretly believe your master is, and the Force mocks you for your arrogance, young phoenix.” The woman laughed, a low, sinister chuckle. “You hate the being who left your mother carrying you, but you have not yet realized. A little girl, sold to slavery too young to recognize why, a young woman lonely and longing for something to love, something all her own—”

Anakin let out a cry, of fury, of denial—

“She did not know what she did, did she, little phoenix? When she made you? She was left wondering and confused? And the Jedi who chose you, sensed her confusion and  _ believed _ ?”

“No,” Anakin protested, sounding like he was on the verge of breaking. “No, no, no—”

“Kenobi,” hissed Talzin, her eyes opening again and staring at the man on the floor, who watched without making a peep, “I can close the doors this foolish child has opened, and I can close the one crafted by  _ Sidious. _ But I cannot keep this young fool from opening them again, or from opening others.” Her gaze shifted to Anakin again. “And there  _ are  _ others, so many others, and for all your strength, you can never fully match what lies on the other side. If you were a Night child, perhaps, but the Force  _ did  _ choose you, child of a phoenix, it filled you with something not meant to lurk in the shadows, and you will destroy it if you continue in your willfulness.”

Ahsoka stared, heart bolting into her throat as she saw the witch's fingers go  _ into Anakin's head.  _

_ Holy—! _

But Obi-Wan seemed to be  _ calming,  _ which made  _ no sense— _

_ “This is her arena, Ahsoka,”  _ Obi-Wan's thought brushed past, sheltered as his mind was behind her struggling shields.  _ “And while she is not an ally, she is not an enemy either.” _

_ She tortured you, Master! What is she doing to Master Anakin? _

_ “Closing doors,”  _ was his answer to her, and his heartbeat, the thought not meant for anyone but himself, followed close after, just as clear,  _ “And if she succeeds, this will all have been worth it.” _

Shocked and subdued by Obi-Wan's conviction in the truth of that, Ahsoka kept still and waited.

When the Mother drew a fistful of something black and viscus  _ out of Anakin's head,  _ flinging it to the side, Ahsoka began to wonder exactly what pain meds she was on.

Talzin withdrew her fingers and Anakin's spine, still curved with discomfort, shuddered.

“I have closed the doors, Force Chosen. But you must know that the Force heard the desire of a slave girl to be more than a slave, and has given you a task. The Cosmic and the Living Force are out of balance, and you have been gifted the strength to align them again. You cannot afford to kill in anger again, young Skywalker. You have a task; and if you choose to walk into darkness, it will allow the Sith access to your special gift.  _ You  _ do not even yet know where it resides, and yet  _ he does. _ He would draw the Cosmic Force to heel, to control all of  _ time,  _ do you  _ understand?  _ You must remain in the light at least until he has been slain, or you condemn every child of the Force to have ever been born, and that ever will be.  _ Do you understand _ ?”

Anakin shivered again. “No,” he spat back.

“Of course not.” Talzin waved her hand. “The fate of us all lies in the hands of an imbecile. Take your padawans and go, Kenobi. You are free. If you were wise, you would kill this one and leave the Force to find a new way to heal itself. I know how to permanently destroy a phoenix, should you ever choose such wisdom.”

Obi-Wan lifted his head, and Ahsoka felt his shields slam upwards, snicking into place with metallic clangs like a vast, impenetrable armor. His eyes flashed, he stood to his feet— though  _ that  _ held a bit of wobbliness still, not quite as dignified as all the rest. “Then I am afraid I shall remain foolish, Mother. Thank you for your help.”

He stepped to Anakin's side and drew him up, Anakin disoriented, scared and leaking humiliation all through the Force.

“Ventress, I hear you are a bounty hunter in your spare time,” Obi-Wan added, voice still not quite strong enough to sound normal, but he was definitely trying. “Care to ferry us back to Republic space for a fee?”

The former Sith stepped out of the shadows and purred, “That sounds reasonable. You take the boy, I'll bring your girl?”  
“You read my mind.”

Ahsoka squeaked as Ventress picked her up, and insisted she could walk  _ herself. _

The woman let her try, and Ahsoka nearly toppled over after two steps.

_ Dammit. _

Then again, Anakin wasn't in much better shape.

Obi-Wan was moving on strength he was getting from  _ somewhere,  _ Ahsoka had no  _ idea  _ where except...

_ Oh. _

Talzin had not-so-subtly insinuated Anakin should be dead. That she didn't believe he had the moral strength to do what the Force needed.

In the face of a direct hazard to Anakin, Obi-Wan was functioning.

_ He'll fall apart the instant we're clear,  _ Ahsoka guessed.  _ Kark. _

She'd have  _ both  _ of them to deal with at that point, then.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

Skyguy was hiding. In the bathroom. Curled up on the floor, hugging his knees, rocking.

Master Obi-Wan lay on the one bunk this tiny freighter had, shields in shambles, his muscles unable to so much as raise his head, and shuddering as his mind sloshed around in fragments, and there were too many awful things in there for it to not be painful for everyone within feeling radius.

_But Anakin's bond to the Sith is broken, and the poison has been taken out. So it's no longer poisoning him, no longer draining Master Obi-Wan..._

_Anakin's free._

If he could keep himself that way.

Ahsoka returned to the cockpit where Ventress had her feet up on the dash, leaned back and grimacing.

Ahsoka sank into the copilot's seat.

“These two, huh?” Ventress asked, looking bored.

Ahsoka managed a small smile, then wondered why she'd bothered.  _How many times have you tried to kill me again?_

Obi-Wan was so comfortable with things moving in and out of a lethal zone. Mother Talzin, Ventress, Hondo— who had very nearly killed Obi-Wan and Anakin, and had  _certainly_ tortured them horribly,  _and_ kidnapped younglings,  _and,_ blegh,  _Hondo_ —

_Holy kark. If Dooku walked away from the Separatists, would Master Obi-Wan hold out a hand to him too?_

“Kenobi's been through...” Ventress stared out at the swirls of hyperspace, “more. Than one would assume. Given how... decent he is. Hasn't let anything turn him bitter and cruel.”

_Is that what happened to you?_

Neither spoke again, instead listening to mournful song of Obi-Wan's unconcealed soul.

 

* * *

 

Mace came rushing out to greet them, eyes huge. “Dear  _Force,_ what  _happened_ to you?” he demanded, seeming only to see Obi-Wan where Ventress all but held him up.

Ahsoka was struggling to hold up Anakin on the way down the ramp, but Mace rushed right by them to scoop Obi-Wan into a bridal carry.

Fortunately, Fisto was right behind him, and drew Anakin's other arm across his shoulders, and the height difference there was  _much_ less pronounced.

Yoda looked up at Ventress, grave and quiet.

“Much you have learned, child. Thank you, I do. With credits, perhaps, hm?”

She hesitated.

Ahsoka had nearly passed out of hearing range when she heard a hesitant, almost young-sounding voice asking, “Do you have a holo of Ky Narec?”

“Find one for you, I think I can.”

 

* * *

 

“Force  _damn,_ Obi-Wan.” Mace gathered his shields, like thick dark purple drapes of a truly fabulous fabric, around Obi-Wan, drawing him out of sight and into protective quiet and blocking out the glaring lights and noise of everything  _outside_ of Obi-Wan's head.

“We did it,” Obi-Wan slurred. “We did it, Mace. He's alive. He's free.”

“And it looks like more than one of you paid a hell of a price.”

“Mace.” Obi-Wan tried to sit up as he was deposited on the couch in the Kenobi-Skywalker-Tano home, but Mace pushed him back down and grabbed the blanket that lay draped over the back. The blanket that lived there mostly to cover the hole burned into it by a young Skywalker's lightsaber, and the spilled tea of an even younger Kenobi, and the scuffs of dirt from a Jinn long before either of the others had been born.

Tucking the cloth around Obi-Wan, ignoring the damaged man's mumbles, Mace shook his head.

Skywalker ended up on his bed and the covers drawn up over him, and Vokara Che was shooing Ahsoka into Kenobi's room, guiding her to lie flat so the healer could have a good look at her injuries.

“Talzin,” Obi-Wan rasped, staring up at Mace with wide eyes. “Maul's biological  _mother._ ”

And all Mace could do, staring down at him, was sigh.

Kenobi had  _the worst_ of luck.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan awoke feeling not quite as  _broken_ as he had as he fell asleep.

That meant someone watched over him while he slept.

Usually that meant Satine.

But... this was Qui-Gon's saggy old couch...

He blinked his eyes open, leaned up on an elbow—

Found Mace sitting on the floor, back against the armrest, head bowed, slumbering.

Even now, he could feel Mace's shields guarding him, like comforting curtains drawn over his wounds, hiding them from the outside world.

Obi-Wan smiled, just a little, as he felt Mace's soul, right there, close. Not hidden away, like almost always, just... asleep... safe...

_Thank you, my friend._

Obi-Wan inspected his own shields, tested their integrity.

Determined that Mother Talzin hadn't actually injured them, had just brushed them aside, left them numb and unavailable to him.

_As I knew, somewhere in there, the whole time: she did not set out to pick a quarrel with the Jedi._

So while Obi-Wan had one day in hell to show for her need for revenge, and might have some lasting psychological glitches...

_No harm done that requires attention from the Order. At least, not unless I ask it._

Obi-Wan wouldn't.

Maul had, as an infant, been stolen away and then corrupted the way the Sith had been trying to corrupt Anakin.

_The decision to join the dark side was not his. It was made for him._

And Obi-Wan did not feel the need to deprive Maul of the one place of refuge he might find. No. Dathomir was Maul's home, and Obi-Wan would not aggress against it.

Obi-Wan replaced his shields piece by piece, buckling it on like a silver armor. Gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, gorget, breastplate, helmet, bac—

“Master Obi-Wan?” a voice hissed.

Obi-Wan looked up, saw Ahsoka peeking out of the door to his bedroom.

She beckoned, and Obi-Wan slipped the last of his shields into place, tightened the straps, and then eased out from under Mace's shields, checked to make sure his friend's beautiful drapes were as they should be, and then inched his way off the couch, trying to not wake the sleeper.

His muscles ached, and—

He must have showered at some point? And changed clothes? Must have been on the flight home.

He wasn't covered in Anakin's blood anymore, and it was an almost visceral relief.

He slipped into his room and closed the door.

“How is Anakin?” Ahsoka asked, voice still low, but not a whisper.

Obi-Wan reached to the room just over, found Anakin sleeping... _cleanly._ Without the restless discomfort that had plagued him for _years._

_No dreams? Restful?_

“He's sleeping,” Obi-Wan replied.

Ahsoka nodded. “I didn't want to reach across our bond, in case I woke him up. I figured, if he's asleep, he  _needs_ it...”

“That was very thoughtful of you.”

She moved closer, wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his chest. “Master.”  
“Padawan,” he replied, feeling moved. He placed a hand on her back, wondering what it would have been like, to have Dooku...  _care._ About Qui-Gon, about the padawan Obi-Wan had been...

But Dooku had never been there. Had distanced himself from the shameful former padawan and the painfully average grandpadawan.

_It's only now, that Qui-Gon's long gone, that he actually wants him around._

Perhaps time had faded Dooku's memories of Qui-Gon's  _crimes._ Greatest of which was not tailoring his tunics to fit better, and instead letting the seams fall nearly haphazard when he sewed.

_If... if Qui-Gon had lived, and taken Anakin himself, would I have found Ahsoka myself? Or would Anakin still have found her, and I would be alone?_

On the outside, looking in, at Qui-Gon and Qui-Gon's chosen child, and their loving Togruta addition?

As if sensing his melancholy, Ahsoka's arms tightened around him. “Did the Nightsisters...” she let go, turned away just a bit, rubbed her upper arm with the other hand. “ _Hurt_ you? The way... the perfume suggested?”

_Oh._

Of course the scent had spoken to her the way it had to Ventress. Who had showed a remarkable amount of restraint, all things considered. She could have mocked him to death had she wanted.

_Togruta are predators._

“No, Ahsoka. They stole my clothes, gave me a sponge-bath, and rubbed that stench into my back and hair, but no. Other than some ogling— which, I might add, is par for the course for any male individual who dares enter their sacred village— I was not assaulted in that way.”

She drew in a heavy breath. “Would you be honest if you had?”

“I would not lie to you about something so grave, Ahsoka. I don't like the thought of you carrying around a dread of that weight concerning my time on Dathomir.”

“I— alright.” She nodded. “Thank you. I get... worried. And Anakin never tells me the truth about what's going on with him.” She sent a watery half-smile up into Obi-Wan's face.

“Me either.”

That choked a single, low chuckle out of her, weary though it sounded. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, then made a firm nod. “So where do you hide this recording of Dooku's band? I have a datapad, we can copy it.”

“Oh.” Obi-Wan tried to reach for a feeling of playfulness, of humor, but it slipped between his fingers. He'd lived too much in the space since, and his soul felt brittle.

But...

Qui-Gon's heart damage had resulted in a hush around him, and Obi-Wan's younger self had hushed in response. It was only later on, when the sly humor began to return, and only in the driest, safest ways. No pranks, no boisterous laughing.

He didn't want to do that to Ahsoka.

So he lowered himself to the floor, slid his head under the bed, and grabbed the box magnetically connected to the underside of the frame.

“Master,” Ahsoka chided, sounding just a little mirthful. “Under the bed? Really? Even _I_ can do better than that.”

Obi-Wan sent her a mock-severe look, even if his heart wasn't in it yet. “In my day, it didn't  _have_ to be better than that.”

“You can be sure Anakin's gone through  _everything_ under there.”

Ha. That undoubtedly resulted in some panicked blushing and hand-washing on the part of padawan Skywalker.

Satine had once sent a young Knight Kenobi a... gift. Long, thick, curved—

Anyway.

Obi-Wan kept it because every time he looked at the purple— and it was a  _ghastly_ tone of purple— monstrosity, it made him smile.

It had been sent during the early days of Anakin's teenagerhood, after Obi-Wan had bewailed that Anakin was _convinced_ Obi-Wan had a “stick up his _arse_.” Anakin's emphasis, not Obi-Wan's.

Accompanying the  _thing_ had been a hand-penned note on delicate cardstock that smelled of Mandalorian lilies, and said simply:  _Proof, for Anakin's hypothesis._

There were other things collected in various boxes stuck to Obi-Wan's bed's underside. A small collection of holos of Qui-Gon. Of other friends that had died.

These days...

There was a datapad, containing a list of the names of every clone who had died under his command personally, and by extension, under Anakin's.

Obi-Wan shoved those thoughts aside.

No, a young Anakin wouldn't have found much of interest under there, except sadness, and one frightening, unused dildo.

He wouldn't have known that, though.

Hence the rabid hand-washing.

Obi-Wan placed the designated Daiev box on the floor and slid off the lid.

Ahsoka peered in, excitement swirling around her in the Force.

Obi-Wan watched, finally a little amused, because it was just old relics belonging to a broken man, hid in a not-very-hidden place.

“You're not broken,” Ahsoka shot back, and lifted the holochip.

Obi-Wan offered up his holodisk, made sure the volume was _very_ low.

Ahsoka happily set it up, then watched, eyes huge, as a very  _young_ and bizarrely-clad Dooku, with a haircut as awful to witness now as it must have been then, growled out the backdrop to a song about some king who shed the blood of Mandalorian men— Saxons, to be precise.

Watching her lose track of her audience and just shake with laughter and silent-clap her hands with glee drew a genuine, if small, smile to Obi-Wan's face.

Not everything had been taken from Obi-Wan. So very much had been stolen, but not all of it, not yet, and he did feel  _some_ pleasure in Ahsoka's delight. He  _felt_ something.

And given how he rather wanted to hole up in a shell and never emerge again, and especially not try to face Anakin, with Anakin's newfound discovery...

Ahsoka finished the one song, then paused the recording, and whispered with an almost desperate joy, “Please, please, please, can we play it on the next battlefield? Does that have to stay as a joke? Can it be _real_?”

“Alright. Make your copy, do what you will. But no one dies  _protecting_ it, we can always make another one. You make sure the boys understand.”

Ahsoka nodded. “Of course. But Master, those droids pick up things they hear. What if we don't save it for Dooku battles; we play songs from it  _every time_ ? The droids that survive will start humming it, and then the ones who bump into them along the way will too, until the droids on Serenno hum it too—”

The laugh, pure and uncontainable, escaped Obi-Wan before he even realized it was going to happen. He stared at Ahsoka with wide, shocked eyes, and she stared back, just as surprised, and with her lips parted in shock.

_I know, we weren't to wake them—_

But the snickers started, and he couldn't  _stop_ them, and didn't he have better control than this? He shook and tears started to his eyes, and he just couldn't get free.

And then Ahsoka was giggling, the damn infection catching just like yawns would—

The door slid open and Mace stared down at them, his eyes widening as he saw Obi-Wan with a hand clamped over his mouth, trying desperately to stay quiet.

The utter despair and  _betrayal_ on Mace's face only made it worse.

“What did you do to my Council chair?” Mace sighed.

Ahsoka turned wide eyes to him.

“ _This_ ?” Mace pointed dramatically at Obi-Wan, “is  _pranking Kenobi._ This is very serious, very bad, and Force  _damn it_ if you've planted a wind cushion there again—!”

Ahsoka nearly choked. “Master Obi-Wan?  _Pranks_ ?”

“ _Insufferable_ as a padawan. Yaddle's hair was pink  _for months._ Yoda, hit with uncontrollable hiccups at dinner time? That was amusing, until they turned into uncontrollable  _burps_ when his diaphragm couldn't take it anymore. The smell drove  _everyone_ out of the whole damn dining hall!”

Obi-Wan, through his shaking, managed to protest, “I did  _not_ know it would lead to that! I went to bed hungry too, it was disastrous for  _all_ of us—”

“Or the time I was substituting for an infernal poetry class, and this little terror put a vocal modifier on the desk, that turned my voice into a squeak-toy, with a shaped emitter, so  _I couldn't hear it,_ all I could see was the class weeping over a moving passage. I even paused to commend them on their  _empathy—_ ”

The snickers weren't quiet anymore. They were agonized chokes of laughter, desperate and painful, and Obi-Wan couldn't  _see—_

“—Until Kenobi couldn't take it anymore and fell to pieces just like this and gave the whole game away. He might have gotten  _away_ with it, if he'd just held it together a  _few more minutes._ ”

Ahsoka couldn't  _believe_ what she was hearing, and it was obvious—

“You drove me to gray hair early, and I had to cut it all off because of you,” Mace accused.

Obi-Wan wiped his eyes, managing to find just enough control to whimper out, “That is  _not_ true, out of all of it,  _that_ is the only thing not true. You never had hair, to begin with.”

“I had wonderful hair, you little ass!”

_I love this man._

A peal of shocked laughter tore out of Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan felt guilty, so guilty, because Anakin jolted awake in the other room.

Mace gathered himself up with a remarkable facade of brave dignity. “I am switching Council seats with Koon until I see what happens to him,” Mace muttered as he marched out.

“You were _trouble_?” Ahsoka squealed almost before Mace had even cleared the apartment.

The Korun scoffed a chuckle, and the apartment door closed behind him.

“After Qui-Gon rescued sorry, soggy little kitten I was, I wasn't the sort that got in fights. But laughter is good for the soul.”

And since he hadn't felt able to laugh with Qui-Gon...

He'd found it wherever else he could find it.

A shaggy, sleep-mussed Anakin appeared in the doorway, blinking at them and yawning, and then stumbling away to the shower.

Ahsoka heaved out a ragged sigh and chuckle, copied Dooku's file, and then tapped on her datapad. “So... I found this book series about phoenix—”

_She's got to be joking._

Obi-Wan found immediate control over himself.

She turned the 'pad around, and there was a face with flames dusting the cheeks.

“Thought maybe you and I could read one together? Laugh about how terrible it is? I thought I'd be doing most of the laughing, but maybe...” She shrugged, grinned.

Obi-Wan nearly refused, feeling funny and embarrassed again inside—

_But really, Kenobi, would it be_ so  _humiliating to read such a thing with your teenage grandpadawan?_

He found himself agreeing before he'd even decided on doing so, and Ahsoka seemed so pleased...

_Oh, dear._

First the music, then the Daiev club, he'd changed his beard and danced again, and now he was _laughing_? Genuine, _real_ laughter?

_What is she doing to me?_ And was it a good thing?

Raising Anakin had driven nearly all the  _life_ out from him, and ushered in so much worry and terror and exhaustion and sheer  _work_ in cleaning up the disasters Anakin left behind—

And with Anakin knighted, Obi-Wan had expected some of the  _work_ to lessen, if not the worry and terror—

But Anakin  _still_ didn't clean up his own messes, and the last two years had been just as intensive as any back in the padawan days.

Except, of course, now when Anakin did something horrifyingly stupid, Obi-Wan could shrug his shoulders, step back, and point out he wasn't  _technically_ Obi-Wan's problem anymore.

And he had shamelessly done this with the Council.

Ahsoka....

There was so much  _joy_ in Ahsoka. She didn't harbor the bitterness and fury that churned around inside Anakin, just waiting to tumble out and burn you.

Ahsoka had a similar intensity, but it seemed to be warmth and smiles, instead.

It felt like hope.

Like maybe Obi-Wan  _wouldn't_ lose  _everything,_ the way he'd assumed for so long that he would.

There certainly wasn't an ounce of reservation within her precious soul about his species. He'd seen that, when she tried to provide a buffer between his mind and the sheer overwhelming ocean of sensation, back on Dathomir.

She wasn't _pretending_ to accept him because it was the Jedi thing to do.

She just... accepted him.

Not the way Anakin did, with a whole slew of  _ifs_ and qualifiers and fine print and subject to being rescinded in the event of any of a very long list of Crimes...

Ahsoka accepted Obi-Wan without reservation...

Like Qui-Gon had.

Obi-Wan's throat closed up and he stood, needing to put in a little distance now, to escape, lest she notice the happiness hadn't endured. That sadness had cast its possessive shadow over him again.

It was alright, though.

_Happiness just isn't something that lasts long for me._

 

 


End file.
